The Estonian information and journalistic site DELFI published a note about the use of Russian. The author is an ethnic Estonian who reasons about the advantages of fluent Russian in a somewhat faltering but decent Russian language. The main advantage of Estonians over many other residents of Western Europe who try to learn Russian, in the opinion of Peeter Raudsik, is easy access to the language practice, for Russians live side by side with Estonians while the interest in the language spoken by their co-citizen neighbors will help improve the social climate inside the country.
“Mom, Dad, brother and dog are at home” and “The sun is shining brightly” were the only Russian phrases I learned at the secondary school. Meanwhile the first statement was sheer lies, because we had no dog at home and the sun does not shine too often in the Estonian sky. The situation is better at some schools where more interesting and informative sentences are used like “Baikal is the deepest lake in the world,” etc.
One can’t underestimate the importance of learning Russian in Estonia. About 50,000 young people learn Russian as their second foreign language, but time after a while we hear about the low level of Russian among our students, especially if we compare their level of speaking with that of the young Russians who in their turn learn Estonian.
The attitude is undoubtedly one of the key problems. They quickly start sticking the “occupation” label to Russian and telling about Russians who do not like to learn Estonian – this certainly beclouds the minds of our youth. If I knuckle my fists at the doors of a bar then nothing good can be expected from this night. And unless people are interested, the matter won’t get off the dime.
Estonians do not want to admit how well we can understand one another. Here is a vivid example: the English version of the clip about a “sniper” from Tujurikkuja scored 350,000 viewings while the Russian version already had more than half a million viewings.
In addition, people who are fluent in Russian have a real advantage in the labor market. The Russian academic world resembles the bottomless Baikal and it’s sad that students who do not speak Russian are unable to draw knowledge and thoughts from this deep well.
We also have other prerequisites for invigorating our relations. Parents play a very important role here. Almost every family might tell you some stories of their mothers traveling over Russia and fathers serving in the Soviet regiments quartered in Estonia. Their half-mystic stories are encouraging and inspiring many even today, for lines in front of the doors of linguistic schools do not emerge accidentally.
Surely we cannot ignore the most important thing: the practical use of the language. Unlike Spanish or French, people may learn Russian very well within Estonia. In the West, students look for opportunities to practice Russian at the price of 15 euro per hour. Here we have an excellent and free chance for successful learning thanks to the nearby Russian community. Unfortunately nothing special has been done so far to capitalize on this chance. The Students Union long ago suggested the idea of domestic exchange for Estonians eager to learn Russian.
Our role as a bridge between the East and the West must not be just that of a storehouse or a railroad. The cultural or political dimension can be more important. The result of our efforts will be a contemporary version of Arnold Susi well familiar to us from GULAG Archipelago who can easily find his bearings in Tallinn and Narva, London and Moscow. Furthermore we have a huge geographical advantage: few states in the Schengen zone have a city on their territory with an 85% Russian population that is located only 130 km away from Saint Petersburg.
In my opinion, we were so quick to head for the West that we often forgot to watch our own steps. Not it’s the right time to look back. After all, all of this also leaves a trace in the development of a common language between our slow Yin and the passionate Yang.
Peeter Raudsik
Source: DELFI
