Narva

I went to Narva for the weekend. To Estonians, this is something equivalent to saying "I went to Detroit for the weekend." When you make such a statement, the first question isn't "how was it?", rather it's "why?" Narva isn't exactly known as a travel destination. It's now more known as depressed industrial town. But to answer "why?", because my friend Alena is currently doing research out there and I thought it would be fun to see her.

That said, Narva is a fascinating city. Over 90% of the population are Russian-speakers, over half of whom are not Estonian citizens. Narva and the surrounding area were heavily industrialized during the Soviet era and as such many Russian workers came to live in the region. This became a major point of controversy after independence as many Estonians saw the presence of Russian workers as sign of occupation and that they didn't belong there. Therefore, many ethnic-Russians were not granted citizenship. While it's fairly easy to get Russian citizenship, as many have, a large portion of Narva's population has no official citizenship. Generally these are older people who have no interest in going anywhere, but there are a number of people that refuse on principal. They see it as humiliating that they cannot get citizenship in a country they may have spent their whole lives and have no desire to claim citizenship of a country in which they never lived. This is changing as the younger generation can speak Estonian and tends to opt for Estonian/EU citizenship. Also despite the problems of being a minority, most ethnic-Russians in Estonia are quick to say that they are different than other Russians and have no desire to live in Russia.

As a major industrial center, Narva was hit hard by the collapse in manufacturing that took place after independence. The picture above is of a now abandoned textile factory. The loss of jobs meant a loss of population and Narva has lost over a fifth of its population during the last 20 years. However, moving isn't an option for all due to linguistic barriers. Many of the former factory workers never learned Estonian as they grew up in a Russian-speaking city within the Russian-dominated USSR. At the time, Estonian was viewed as a strange language spoken by only a handful of people. Now it's the language of the majority, although it's still strange. Besides Narva and one other city that I know of, it would be virtually impossible to get a job in Estonia without knowing Estonian. So many former factory workers stay in Narva, hoping for better days. Also, national unemployment is around 13%, so there are obviously not many jobs to be had anywhere in Estonia.

Narva is also interesting because it sits right on the Russian border. I got this picture while in the tower of a medieval fortress. I'm sure the Russians loved that I was taking pictures of border control. Narva is separated by Russia by a river. On the other side of the river is the Ivangorod, a small town that used to something of a bedroom community of Narva. However, this became problematic when Estonia became independent as it could sometimes take hours or even days to get permission to cross the border. Crossing has since become more streamlined, allowing pedestrians to cross relatively quickly. However, this has presented its own problems as many products are cheaper in Russia than in Estonia. Smuggling Russian cigarettes is quite common.

Anyway, it's getting late and I've just realized that I haven't actually said anything about my weekend there. So I'll put that in my next update.