Thread by @IlvesToomas

A longer thread on Russian visas, taxes and how we Estonians are:

Ever since independence 31 years ago, the Baltic States and occasionally Poland as well have been continuously threatened by Russia, both officially as well as in the state-controlled media.

1/n

We have been threatened with invasion, with nuclear waste; our gas has been repeatedly cut — ever since 1991. Putin has said Russia will regain its “historical borders”, i.e. its borders 110 years ago, which also included Finland.

2/n

In Estonia in 2007 a riot of local Russians was organized by the Russian government, its embassy as well as provocateurs — “Nashi”, who got here by getting Finnish visas and coming over from Finland. (for obvious reasons we had temporarily closed the border)

3/n

It was obvious that when this awful war started, publics in the front-line states in the EU and NATO — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland — and a Russian media constantly bragging about how Russia would invade us next, would want to seal our vulnerable borders. I.e.,

4/n

stop granting visas to Russian passport holders.
As you would expect, this provoked a reaction. “How dare you violate our human rights!” — which once again revealed the Russian understanding of human rights, of what is a "right" and what is not.

5/n

Visas are privileges, not rights. You have no right to just enter a country. We shall leave out the Russian joke about tanks not needing visas. It's one of those jokes that only strengthens our resolve. Visas are *granted*, not passed out.

6/n

One line of argument re: Russia has been: “you should give Russians visas, they will see what it’s like to live in the West”. Yes, propagandist Margarita Simonyan even spent a year in the US based on this naive belief that living in the West will turn you into a democrat.🤷🏻‍♂️
7/n

As I wrote in response, Estonia is not a social welfare agency for solving Russia’s problems. We have no obligation whatsoever to do that:

https://twitter.com/IlvesToomas/status/1553227938774110209?s=20&t=WMv0DRmlShnUmO4mDCsXww

8/n

More annoying was the advice I got from Russians and others telling me Estonia should take Russian IT experts as they are low-cost and that without low-cost IT labor Estonia's IT sector wouldn't be able to compete.😂

9/n

Kinda funny saying this to a country that invented Skype and today has 10 native unicorns, (or 1 for every 130k inhabitants, higest in the world). We hire talent from Apple, Netflix, Spotify. That is the arrogance of ignorance, which we often run into in the West as well.

10/n

In the particular case, however, we do have let in one of these model IT immigrants we are urged to take. Unfortunately and contrary to the idea that instead of depriving Russia of IT talent, all we did was import lawlessness, and Estonia- and Ukrainophobia.

11/n

A certain Ms X, whining about high Estonian taxes and how she didn’t want her money to go to help Ukrainian refugees Estonia, boasted and described on Twitter how she flouts Estonian tax law.

Mind you, this is an immigrant who enjoys Estonia's considerable modern services.
12/n

Now what you need to understand is that in Estonia we are, believe it or not, actually proud to pay our taxes. It's what has put us ahead. We boast who gets their taxes done first and how fast we do it (virtually all personal taxes are done on line for over 20 years).

13/n

This is part of Estonia’s transformation from a corrupt and lawless ex-commie dump, to where today we share with Ireland 10th place in the world in rankings of rule of law.

Russia is 101, behind Tanzania but just ahead of the Philippines.

14/n

So to sum up, our reluctance to take Russians in at this time is based on:
1. Estonia's history of mass deportations, brutal occupation and russification during 50 years, experiencing what Ukrainians in Russian occupied areas suffer today: killings, rapes, torture, looting
15/n

2. A 30+ year experience with Russia threatening to invade us, to "show us who's boss" cutting off gas supplies, kidnapping our people and using “tourists” to foment a riot.

3. A deep skepticism about transforming Russians who come here into non-imperialist democrats.

16/n

4. Experience with being taken advantage of by people like the rude Ms X who flout our laws and flaunt it. Thereby showing complete disrespect to our way of life.

5. Local Russian ukrainophobia/ hostility directed at people Estonians very much support, admire and feel for.
17/n

In short, give it a break. Leave us alone, we've had enough of our neighbor's behavior, here and in Ukraine.

And end visas (tourist, work, etc.) for Russian passport holders to come to the European Union and exploit our good will.

18/fin