Border Crossing Blog

My Russian Babushka in Estonia/моя русская бабушка в эстонской республике

I was greeted by a big smile when I walked in Antonina's door. Antonina is 70 years and part of the much discussed Russian population of Estonia*. Unlike many Russian Estonians, she speaks Estonian and and has Estonian citizenship. Born outside the Russian golden ring town of Vladimir in between the wars, afer she graduated from technical school, Antonina was offered a job in one of Tallinn's electronics factories named Pegelmann. Twenty years old and pregnant, she and her husband jumped at the offer. Unbeknownst to her, Antonina was part of Moscow's attempt to Russify Estonia.

When Antonina's husband died several years back, she didn't know how she would survive with her 200 dollar a month pension. An Estonian lady, one of her neighbors, worked for a accomodation agency, and told her she could put up tourists. Now, in her one bedroom apartment (what a Russian would call a two-room flat), Antonina sleeps on a pull-out sofa when she has guests.

After the smile we started talking a bit and Antonina's expression changed. She isn't happy about putting up guests, as she forthrightly told me. However, she feels like she has no other recourse. Like any good Russian grandma, she worries. With all the crime she sees on television these days she doesn't know who will walk through her door. In the course of my stay I heard many horror stories. She, however, stresses that most of the tourists who stay with her are good. She had an Italian guest, though, who brought a prostitute back to her apartment.

Antonina is representative of many of her age who look whisftully back to Soviet times. Antonina was unfortunate to be of the generation which was reaching retirement just as the Soviet regime collapsed. Work under communism was usually easy, and retirement, by all accounts, was something to look forward to. Though there were bread lines and things were scarce, people weren't reduced to begging, and then, of course selective memory recalls only the long summers at the dacha...

The first thing Antonina told me when I walked in the door was exactly how much money she had before and what she has now. Of course now there's more to buy, but there's no money to buy it with. Regardless, life is much more complicated now and older people just don't know how to make the transition.

Antonina is lucky. Prices are higher in Tallinn than in Russia, but the pensions are much higher. I didn't seem pensioners begging in Estonia like you do here in Russia.

I gave Antonina a big hug when I left.

*All of the Baltic countries have put in strict language laws that Moscow is very angry about. Schooling for the Russian minority in their native language is not allowed, and all Russian must pass language exams in order to receive citizenship. Posted by Aaron at May 21, 2004 06:36 PM