8 min. / Tallinn / language: English
with Sergei Pogoreltsev
Sergei lives and studies in Tallinn, Estonia.
I remember the funniest thing relating to the Soviet period – I didn’t know any of the details of the regime, the Soviets, the Bolsheviks and so on – and the funniest thing was when I went with my mum and my little brother to the shops, to buy bread: all three of us had to go if we wanted to buy three loaves of bread. And of course when I was in kindergarten Lenin was my hero and following perestroika my first shock came when my grandpa told me the truth. I think during the Soviet period he wasn’t brave enough to tell me. Then I began to read history and started to realize the nuances and details of it all. Around 1989-1990 we liked to go to the Caucasus, to Sotchi, with my grandfather, grandmother and cousin; and it was very easy, because it was all one big Union. We went there, we had a very nice time, we swam, and we stayed at a summer resort, but suddenly in 1992 we were told, Anastasia and me, that no, we can’t go there anymore! My initial feeling about perestroika was different, my world became smaller and I could go there.
I did not have many problems with Estonian citizenship because my mother had a blue passport, and so I got it, let us say, by default. Some of my friends had to take the Estonian exam and the exam on the Constitution, but I was free of all those exams. As time went on, after perestroika, we as Russians started to feel, let us say, pressure from our Estonian neighbours. More and more I saw Estonians oppressing Russians, and in Estonia the apogee of all this was the conflict about the monuments. I can understand those Estonian people who think of Russians as occupiers. I think sometimes they don’t understand the distinction I make between Russians and communists. A lot of Russian people also suffered because of the regime, the Soviet communist regime. But now they have decided to inflict all of their grief – for their parents and their ancestors who suffered under the regime – on us, the Russian youth. At first I did not notice anything, but the more I go through life, the more I notice the dirty looks, especially at university – at school there were no problems because it was a Russian school. When I am with Estonians, I try to make myself more comfortable, I try to feel less oppressed, and if the Estonians don’t give me any reason to feel nervous, then I just don’t feel nervous and I feel fine.