An Evening at the Embassy of Estonia

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to visit Estonia, or at least the Estonian embassy in the U.S., to learn more about the Baltic country’s past, present, and future.

The embassy is centrally located in Dupont Circle at the southern end of Embassy Row, and is housed in a beautiful, large townhouse. The evening featured a welcome and presentation by the ambassador, His Excellency Eerik Marmei, followed by a reception of Estonian cuisine.

As a Swede/Finn, I’ve always been curious about and interested in visiting Estonia. Ferries such as Silja Line (now Estonian-owned by Tallink) cruise regularly between Tallinn, Helsinki, and Stockholm. Estonia’s dramatic, forward-thinking development in cohesion with is historic cities makes it the top Baltic state on my list of places to visit.

I was already aware of Estonia’s open internet access, role in cyber security globally, support of NATO, and natural resource-heavy industries. What I was interested to learn more about was how ready the former Soviet Union acquisition was for Russia’s newest campaign to reconfigure the world map.

Estonia spends 2 percent of its GDP annually on defense. It is one of more active European countries in terms of defense spending and building.

Since the advent of the European Union and continental integration, armed forces Europe-wide have diminished. Not to mention, by engaging in NATO with the military powerhouse that is the United States, most of the EU has enjoyed a cozy security blanket. By being united from within and only a hotline away from calling up America’s armed forces, “Venus” could enjoy unprecedented peace. Until Putin decided the rules of the diplomatic game no longer applied.

Estonia is fully integrated in the European Union, Eurozone, and NATO; unlike Georgia and Ukraine, the Western world has a clear obligation to ensure the security of Estonia’s borders if there should be a problem. That wasn’t the key issue of Wednesday’s talk.

The issue, or rather, goal for Estonia is removing the last traces of Russian and Societ political power from within its borders. As with most of Europe, Russia’s pipelines provide Estonia with gas. Fortunately, gas is only 8 percent of total Estonian energy sources, but it is still a clear energy security problem. Ambassador Marmei warned that Putin would eventually get burned by using these energy agreements, which are considerably pricier for most former Soviet states, as a political tool. Estonian oil reserves, thanks to a country widely covered in oil-brewing ecosystems, are some of the largest in Europe (though probably some of the dirtiest due to shale oil, which the presentation didn’t mention), allowing the country to be completely self-reliant on energy and even an exporter of oil. The goal, according to the ambassador, is to become completely energy independent from Russia, perhaps even over the next 10 years, by exploring growth in alternative energy sources. He named biofuels and renewables as possible resources, though my research after the presentation suggested that Estonia is not rich enough to invest in “immature” technologies.

The second remaining energy-legacy of the Soviets is the power grid, which is still connected, as I understand it, to the old Soviet, now Russian power grid. To mitigate this link to Russia; Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia have agreed on a new energy transmission line that will run through the Nordic and Baltic States.

My one beef with the Estonians as of Wednesday is that the ambassador stated that they have the ”finest resorts in all of Scandinavia.” 1) When did you become Scandinavian, oh Baltic state? and 2) Even if you would like to compare yourself to Scandinavia, do you really have the finest resorts?

My Nordic pride was later soothed by the ambassador’s statement that after being freed of the East, Estonia looked to Sweden and Finland to model and build the new, Western Estonia.

Photos: Emmie Derback, Nikon D3200, 135mm lens