Thread by @MollyMcKew

People always ask why I spend so much time in the Baltics. I always answer: it's closer to the war. How someone reacts to that tells you how much they understand, or not.

Returned to the Tallinn Military Cemetery today. The immediacy of Estonian history is always present: /1

The Tallinn Military Cemetery (Kaitseväe Kalmistu) is a quiet, mournful place.

When the Russians occupied Estonia during WWII, they began knocking down the graves of Estonians and burying dead Russians on top of them. /2

Most of these misshapen hunks of rock are new tombstones installed by the Russians in the last 20 yrs. These graves are maintained by the Russian embassy to make a political point.

Keep an eye on the guy in the background. More on him later. /3

This is the reconstructed monument for the Estonian Freedom Cross (Vabadusrist), which was awarded for valor during the 1918-20 Estonian War of Independence. It was torn down by the Soviets; the Estonians found the pieces and put it back together. /4

This is the grave of LTC Oskar Luiga, who received not one but three Vabadusrist -- one for military leadership, two for personal courage -- for his role in the independence war.

He was executed by the Russians in 1941. /5

This is Oskar Luiga during the independence war. /6

These are the graves of White Russians who fought on the side of Estonia in the independence war, in the Loodearmee (northwest army). /7

These are graves of British Navy sailors who died during the independence war. During the Soviet occupation, the Estonian woman who kept the grounds hid them under a pile of rubbish for 40 years. She walked into the British embassy as soon as it reopened ... /8

... And told them where the graves were hidden, undisturbed all that time. She got to meet the Queen.

Oddly enough, here's an old @benimmo article on the British navy in Baltic Independence /9

m.baltictimes.com/article/jcms/i…

These are monuments for officers who were executed by the Russians, mostly in Russia, so no one knows where their bodies are.

I know a lot of Estonians who have no idea where the bodies of their fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers, lay. /10

These are graves of Russians killed by Estonian metsavennad (forest brothers/resistance) during the occupation.

The last forest brother was caught in 1978. They killed a lot of Russians in the meantime. Forest brothers were the mythology of young Estonians under USSR /11

This is the Bronze Soldier, a Soviet WWII memorial. When it was relocated to the cemetery in 2007, riots broke out -- planned and provoked from Moscow to mobilize Estonian Russians against their government. /12

Shortly after the Bronze Night Riots came a massive Russian cyberattack against Estonia.

The riots and the cyberattacks were the first two actions in a Russian hybrid war that we should have paid more attention to.

That was 11 years ago. Rally up, already. /13