Russians in Estonia

Various Russian communities have lived in Estonia over the past 1,000 years due to geographical proximity and Russian Imperial conquests. Earlier communities consisted of traders, religious and political dissidents and settlers. Until the 1940s, these communities remained relatively small, comprising less than a tenth of the population. Persons belonging to the ethnic Russian minority lived predominantly along the eastern frontier of the Republic. Their livelihood was mainly based on agriculture and fishing.

Following Estonia’s incorporation into the USSR, large numbers of ethnic Russians migrated to Estonia to work as factory workers, state and communist party administrators, military and police personnel. The share of ethnic Estonians in Estonia decreased steadily from 1950 to 1989, while the overall population grew. From 1945, the number of ethnic Russians residing in Estonia increased dramatically and by 1989 they comprised almost a third of the total population. Ethnic Russian migration into Estonia and this population’s demographic growth formed one of the key issues on which Estonian nationalists, the Popular Front for the Support of Perestroika, mobilized during the Gorbachev’s perestroika period. The other reasons included greater control over economic affairs and calls for cultural and ecological self-determination.

The lack of promotion of Estonian language and culture, and the necessity of Russian in social and economic spheres during the Soviet period, created a situation where by 1989 only 15 per cent of the Estonian ethnic Russian population claimed to know Estonian in 1989. In the early years of Estonia’s newly regained independence, the ethnic Russian minority was viewed as in need of ‘integration’. The restoration of the interwar Estonian republic, and not the formation of a new state, was used to justify a selective citizenship policy excluding post-war migrants and their descendants from automatic citizenship allocation. The ethnic Russian community was the principal target of this policy, and its members have accounted for most of the ‘non-citizens’ or individuals with ‘undetermined citizenship’ status in the country.

Ethnic Russians still comprise the majority of non-citizens in Estonia today, accounting for approximately 80 per cent of the total non-citizen population, with the remainder formed primarily of Ukrainians, Belarusians and other smaller minorities. As of 2017, 19 per cent of the total population of ethnic Russians hold the ‘undetermined citizenship’ or ‘non-citizen’ status.  By contrast, only 0.2 per cent of the ethnic Estonian population hold ‘non-citizen’ status.

Treatment of ethnic Russian non-citizens continues to be a major issue domestically and bilaterally with the Russian Federation. Statements by the Russian Federation at international forums, such as the UN Forum on Minority Issues, frequently highlight the exclusive citizenship policies of the Baltic States, including Estonia, that have left thousands of ethnic Russians de facto stateless. Non-citizens in Estonia cannot vote in or stand as candidates in national elections; they can only vote in local elections but not stand as candidate. While Estonia’s political opportunities for non-citizens are not as limited as in Latvia, in both states non-citizens are not allowed to form political parties, work in public offices and in other public-sector positions, such as police officers, judges, notaries and many more. On the other hand, citizens of the European Union (EU) who are resident in Estonia but do not hold Estonian citizenship are allowed to be members of local governments and certain commissions of the presidential electoral body, notary and bailiff. These positions are not accessible for non-citizens.

Conversely, non-citizens are not able to participate in the elections of the European Parliament as they are not recognized as citizens of the EU. Consequently, other rights such as those provided under the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU also do not apply to non-citizens: for example, in terms of freedom of movement, they do not have complete visa-free travel within the EU.

Given their limited opportunity to participate in public life, it is particularly worrying that there are no consultative opportunities available for minorities on a national level as the Presidential Roundtable and similar minority consultative initiatives were abolished. The only option to extend consultative opportunities to a national level, technically, could be facilitated in the form of a Cultural Autonomy Body provided by the Law on Cultural Autonomy of National Minorities of 1993. The Law on Cultural Autonomy of National Minorities of 1993 provides for the establishment of Cultural Autonomy Bodies to be elected by citizens who have registered as belonging to a relevant minority group, provided that the population of that community is over 3,000 persons. While the law further specifies that such national minority cultural autonomy bodies may be established by persons belonging to German, Russian, Swedish and Jewish minorities, despite repeated efforts to create a Russian Cultural Council it has yet to materialize. Only two groups are currently covered by the legislation: the Swedish and Ingrian-Finnish Cultural Councils have been established and receive some funding from the Ministry of Culture to conduct their work. The NGO Russian Cultural Autonomy (Vene Kultuuriautonoomia) applied to the Ministry of Culture in 2006 to initiate the process of creating the Russian Cultural Council, but its application was dismissed and court proceedings appealing this decision have been ongoing ever since. Another application by the NGO Foundation Endowment for Russian Culture submitted to the Ministry of Culture in 2009 has been postponed, leaving the Russian minority without a Cultural Autonomy Body.

The Russian minority and international monitors allege occupational, salary and housing discrimination because of Estonian language requirements. Language proficiency requirements continue to be a barrier to employment for individuals whose first language is not Estonian Unemployment levels are higher among Russians and Russian-speakers, as evidenced by significantly higher unemployment rate in areas like Ida-Viru County, where ethnic Russians make up almost three quarters of the population. The language proficiency requirements continue to be an obstacle in both public and private employment and negatively impact on income levels for members of Russian-speaking minorities. The Language Inspectorate can investigate public bodies and private enterprises to determine if Estonian language requirement have not been enforced, with charges or fines potentially incurred for any infractions: this is problematic in cities like Narva, which is predominantly Russian-speaking and has elected Russian-speaking representatives in the city council.

Another issue related to language is education. From 2007, Estonia steadily reduced the use of Russian language use in the upper secondary school curriculum in Russian language schools to 40 per cent of the total teaching and allocated 60 per cent of the teaching in the Estonian language. The process was undertaken gradually and without lowering the standard of education in the minority schools, but teachers experienced a number of complications as a result of the school reform, including capacity gaps and some shortfalls in adequate teaching materials. Some young minority children reportedly viewed the efforts to teach them primarily in Estonian as discriminatory. There were also insufficient measures in place to extend opportunities for bilingual education with the aim of increasing interaction between the majority and the minority communities: indeed, the steps taken in the years leading up to 2015 may have resulted in greater division between Estonian and Russian language schools. Through this period, the number of pupils studying in Russian language steadily decreased, from 28,146 in 2008 to 22,464 in 2013. As of 2013, 14 per cent of general education schools had Russian as the language of instruction.

However, some positive steps have also been taken. The ruling coalition in 2016 agreed to allow certain gymnasiums in Tallinn and Northeast area of Estonia to come back fully to teaching in Russian language, but only if the graduates of these schools were able to pass the Estonian examination at C1 level. In terms of minority language media, in 2015 Estonia introduced a new publicly funded news channel in Russian, ETV+, to reach its Russian-speaking minority. As of 2015, the Russian-language programmes broadcast by the public television channels, including programmes with subtitles, had increased by 30 per cent since 2009, totalling some 520 hours annually. As for the Russian-language print media, in 2013 there were 35 Russian language periodicals, 19 magazines and 14 serial publications published. Estonia’s media landscape continues to be divided along linguistic lines, with different groups accessing different media outlets characterized separated not only by language, but also their cultural, political and ideological outlooks.