WILD, WILD EAST

Sami Lotila looks at some of the less palatable side-effects of Estonia’s cowboy capitalism

“Narva – the most positive city in Europe” is a joke its inhabitants have heard far too often. The trading hub on the Russian border has the highest percentage of HIV carriers in the EU. As many as 3% of Narva’s 68,000 inhabitants are infected, and the number is rising – but the country’s health department has ceded the entire prevention drive to the Global Fund and other international organisations.

Critics believe the domestic epidemic could have been staunched had Estonia’s government acted earlier and with greater conviction. The trouble is, too many Estonians strongly believe that all major societal problems will eventually take care of themselves as long as economic growth is strong enough. This view is dangerously compounded by Estonia’s extreme liberalism – or “cowboy capitalism” – which rests on keeping state structures and control mechanisms as “thin” as possible.

For a foreigner arriving in the capital Tallinn this might mean taxi drivers charging €50 for a trip of a few kilometres, or shops blatantly selling illegal CDs, DVDs and software. In the old part of Tallinn, a relatively small area, there are as many as 20 massage parlours offering sex. Everything seems to be for sale in Estonia, from instant driving licenses to the laws made by the Riigikogu (Estonian parliament).

In last year’s UN Human Development Report, Estonia holds 40th place behind several other eastern European countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland. According to Madi Heinmets, editor-in-chief of the report, “This is characterised, for example, by poor health indicators and the lowest male life expectancy and largest proportionate number of prisoners in the EU.”

Some economists are also worried about Estonia’s rapidly rising personal debt. “What this society needs most at the moment is to concentrate on its people and their wellbeing,” says Raul Eamets, professor of economics at Tartu University and a member of the Supervisory Board of Eesti Pank, the central bank of Estonia. According to Eamets, Estonia’s infrastructure could also use some spit and polish. “We might be proud of the e-government and e-elections, but there’s still only one train running daily from Tallinn to Tartu, the second biggest city in Estonia – and that train is slow.”

Compounding the problems is the fact that, in Estonia, the politicians are businessmen too. In Tallinn, the city government has been privatising old-town apartments worth millions of kroons for prices 100 times lower, and vows to continue doing so. The real buyers – behind the shells they are using – seem to be persons close to the politicians, or even the top officials themselves.

“Estonians are the kind of people who will never, ever protest strongly against their rulers,” says Ebba Rääts, the only worker of the EAL, the Estonian journalists’ union. “No matter who takes what or how they do it, Estonians remain calm. That’s in our nature.”