When visiting any country part of the fun is to learn some about the populations traditions and history. What better way than to spend a few hours on a rainy day, visiting a museum. Estonia is a small country with a population of around 1.3 million. Most people speak at least three languages, Estonian, Russian and English, we never had a problem communicating, everyone was eager to serve us in English. The last century has been full of twists and turns for this little country. They went from being a province of Russia to gaining independence, then again came under Russian rule, then Nazi occupation, Russian occupation again until the fall of the USSR. Now they are a member of the EU. Estonia really is ready for business.
There is no love lost between Russian and Estonian. The Estonians suffered greatly during the Russian repression where thousands were tortured or sent to prison camps. Over 19,000 were executed, farmer lost their land, thousands of immigrants flooded the country. The Forest Brothers, a group of 14,000 guerrillas had little success against the Soviet army. Then in 1990, Estonia held free elections despite Russia's attempts to stop it, and regained independence in 1991.
Make one realize how fortunate we are in Canada to have never had a war on Canadian soil, well at least for a very long time.
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