Economically speaking, we have universal healthcare, try to implement free school lunches up to 9th grade, partly free higher education (state funds all tuition costs for some enrollments, especially in STEM), decent public school system and relatively low corruption (in case of Estonia, public education is especially outstanding, and corruption is very low).
Ethnically, societies are divided between native populations and russian minorities (who make up 25-35% of entire population) that Stalin forced to resettle here in order for them to work in industries built to serve entire Soviet Union (for some reason, this process was skipped for Lithuania, where there was never any massive industry-building).
Also before you start saying that "baltics are spooked fashy trash b/c they hate russians all the time", keep in mind that there is factual evidence about Russia sending literal paid provocateurs here to spout divisive rhetorics against the balts amongst russian communities here. Sometimes it's not even about NATO or baltic states being aligned with americans, but it's straight up russian imperialism, which dates back to czar Peter the Great's delusions about "needing a window to Europe" which meant occupying baltic territories and turning us into theme park to entertain russian bourgeois tourists and other upper class. This was exactly the same case during USSR when they pumped money towards many of the closed cities and territories in baltics, where they brought western tourists or "bright minds of the USSR" to "bring an example about the living conditions in USSR".
I always wondered what the fuck is up with that little random Russia?
Austin Parker
I am a history nerd but I never understood why was lithuania not able to hold all that territory they once had.
It's a piece of german territory, nazis were really autistic about that piece of clay back in a day because "muh Prussia", which is maybe half of the reason why russians wanted it to themselves. Other reason is that USSR built massive navy bases there and didn't want them pesky poles to inherit them.
Justin Perry
Old Prussian territory with a useful port. Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg was absolutely shrecked during WWII, and all the Germans were expelled post-war because of the whole genocide and all. Poland got the biggest chunk of Prussia, the Soviets picked up an ice-free port.
Because territory doesn't translate to power, and colours on a map tells you nothing about the structure of a state.
Prussia was pretty German, the cities especially. Kant lived in Koenigsberg. Not that the Nazis didn't bring the ethnic cleansing upon themselves.
Angel Barnes
russians are trash
Christopher Gomez
Could you elaborate on that?
Daniel Howard
Need to rebuild all the factories and embrace full automation as well as invest into own agriculture,as well as vertical farming because at the current moment everything here is made in China and food is imported from Poland. T.Lithuanian
Nathan Fisher
I also forgot to mention that I respect Estonia for trying to implement E-Democracy. It is very important for Estonia to implement it so that it could be a positive example for Lithuania. Bassically my ideal Lithuania would look like this
Levi Stewart
Nice to see a fellow balt here in Holla Forums. I'm OP (the estonian) and when I was an exchange student in Riga, it perplexed me how latvians do not use ID-card readers at all, while it's very common in Estonia to have those at every household and office. We use those for business- or government-related verification so you can do all of that stuff from home.
I'm glad you are not demoralized and have hope for your people. All the balts I've met so far have been "nah my country's shit I wanna go to Germany or UK to work" which gets boring after some point. Your bulletpoints are ideal for each country tho.
Josiah Carter
Yeah, needing ports is such a delusional motive.
Grayson Gray
The Baltics are mostly irrelevant, pawns for greater powers. I don't have much of an opinion about them.
Evan Gray
Also needing the baltic territories (to scare Sweden or whatever) for this is just peak imperialism
I don't disagree, it's just that our geographic location keeps fascinating certain world powers from time to time. Some burger politicians in high positions keep visiting baltics, since they unironically think that if Russia and US ever go to war, baltics will be where the frontline is at, so they want to make sure they see the frontline with their own eyes before shit hits the fan.
Kevin King
So? Having one port makes having more irrelevant? Port capacity and infrastructure exist. Having literally 100% of all imports and exports take place through a single port is not desirable or efficient, and makes you insanely vulnerable to having that single port closed off or captured. Russia just captured the Crimea for similar port related reasons a few years ago. And of course it's imperialism. What else do you expect great powers to engage in? It'd be a pretty inane geopolitical move to just allow a huge weakness which you could fix to persist.
Jacob Clark
I see your point, and it's not just the port thing alone. In case you didn't know, the initial reason people here in Estonia actually started to organize against soviety union and pro-independence was during 1986 when Soviet Union presented a plan to expand phosphorite mines to extent where they could potentially fuck up half of our country's natural environment forever.
Say what you will about the americans but at least they are not doing willing to do this shit over here.
Matthew Flores
their paranoia over russia and russian is hillarious
same with czechs and slovaks
Zachary Anderson
p.s. i meant that czechs and slovaks have the same hillarious paranoia
Hudson Perry
What's so hilarious about it, though?
Lucas Sanchez
the paranoia
if you mention russia or if you suggest that their language reminds you of russian they freak out
not to mention the fact that latvia has (or had unitl recently) a 40 % russian "minorit" without any political rights (weren't able to vote etc)
Hudson Peterson
the paranoia in itself is hillarious, it's like a form of an ancient fear, similar to how cavemen were afraid of thunder i would say
Gabriel Cooper
Some of them refuse to learn the native language and thus don't qualify for a citizenship post-USSR anymore. I don't agree that they are completely marginalized, because if you are hostile against native population then assimilation will be tough for you. Most of the people that do learn the native language have all the rights granted to them to partake in society.
Austin Powell
I once heard that chemical weapons from WW2, seized from German vessels and simply thrown overboard into the Baltic, would occasionally wash up ashore in the Baltic republics. Any truth to that?
Justin Howard
Estonia is probably the only place that handled the fall of the union well, and you guys are way more open to technology than most West European countries. How did that even happen?
Though Lithuania is pretty shitty AFAIK from a buddie living there.
Ryan Long
it was not imperialism though
Nathan Richardson
Nationalism is stupid.
Baltics and Poland belong to Russia because USSR will bring glorious revolution to the world. Nato is a puppet.
Benjamin Ross
...
Justin Lewis
Fascinating.
Ian Cruz
the baltics are the ass end of Europe after the collapse of Cold War socialist states.
Robert Sanchez
kidding
I'm just really disappointed that Ukrainians use "not being Russian" as a rally point for their fascism. Nato has done a lot to make sure that Russia has as much diffuculty as possible accessing fertile arable land.
It makes me think Baltic states are probably Russian people but got better deals from Western governments for the use of their ports and started to distance themselves to preserve their new class interests.
Michael Howard
It's not really an union when one side wants to force their shit on you. Besides, we talk about some idealistic version and not the current kleptocracy, right?
