Op-Ed

Karl Altau, JBANC Vladimir Kara-Murza is not your average Russian citizen. You may have recently read that he was detained on April 11, 2022, in Moscow. Russian authorities declared him a “foreign agent” and ordered his arrest for allegedly spreading false information about the Russian military in its war against...

Sergei Metlev, Member of the Board of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory It is becoming increasingly apparent that some Russian-speaking Estonians are offended and complaining. In general terms, it sounds like this: Ukrainian war refugees are given immediate and plentiful aid, but we who have lived here for a...

Maarika Sterling Author with her grandmother, Ingrid (Sibul) Polikarpus, 1982.Photo: Carolyn Polikarpus This is me with my grandmother. Watching the news the last few days, the refugees streaming out of Ukraine, mothers with their children – I keep thinking about my grandmother.My uncle was the only one of her five...

The kind of war with Ukraine promised to us by the U.S. was never Russia's plan, foreign policy expert Kadri Liik said on ERR's program "Otse Uudistemajast" (Straight From the Newsroom) on February 16. Kadri Liik. Source: ERR According to Liik, an offensive with a high number of casualties and...

Indrek Lepson When I was in Hawaii in September 1977, I met D'arcy Whiting, a sail maker from New Zealand, at the Waikiki Yacht Club. We got on well, shared many beers and stories, and he said that if I ever got to New Zealand, to look him up. That...

Jaak Rakfeldt, Ph.D. Enel ran down the stairs to the basement, where Kristi and I were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. She was out of breath, panting, but finally was able to stammer out that there was a coup d’état happening in Moscow. She turned on the television and...

"Laud on kaetud!" writes jewelry artist Ülle Mesikäpp from her home in the Tallinn suburb of Nõmme. Katma lauda = to set the table in preparation for a meal and when the laud is kaetud, you're welcome to take a seat (asuma lauda, võtma istet). Katma is also simply to...

Head uut aastat lovers of kitties aka kiisud! If you haven't yet visited the websites of animal shelters in Estonia, I suggest you do. (Web addresses listed at the end.) The stories, names and descriptions of the cats (much more numerous than dogs), waiting to find new homes, penned by dedicated vaba/tahtlikud (volunteers)...

The Embassy of the Czech Republic recently hosted an online panel discussion “Radio Free Europe at 70: Its Importance Then and Now” to look at the relevance of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL or the Radios) through more than 70 years of service.  The panelists were former directors of RFE/RL...

Tiina Ann Kirss   Tiina Ann Kirss.    Source: Ly Lestberg / ERR   Literary scholar Tiina Ann Kirss writes  about her family, who were among the 75,000 Estonians who fled in 1944, to mark the unveiling of a new monument to those known as boat refugees on the Puise Peninsula,...