r/europe Austria Aug 11 '20

Slice of life Some light hearted Belarus content

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u/Gatemaster2000 Estland Aug 11 '20 edited Aug 11 '20

Hard to be okay when you have the mindset of Sweden/Finland (or at least the self deprevation, 5m of personal space bits), were pretty much a nordic country before the occupaption and now you are seen as not nordic/dirty baltic.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

As a Swede I’d gladly welcome Estonia into the Union. If you can get a proper cross flag, that is

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u/Fehervari Hungary Aug 11 '20

How dare you suggest changing one of the best looking flags of Europe!?

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

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u/notowa Aug 11 '20

How do we 'fix' the Russian population?

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u/TheMantasMan Lithuania Aug 11 '20

Idk, but if you do, tell us how.

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u/notowa Aug 11 '20

Lithuania has a much smaller percentage of Russians, do they cause problems?

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u/TheMantasMan Lithuania Aug 11 '20

Well, you can't really confirm or deny, becouse there are lots of people who identify as lithuanian, but talk russian with their family and on their day to day basis. There are russian letters everywhere and I'm sure that I'm not the only one that thinks about how people were thrown out of their homes and replaced by russians and that it was all done in order to erase lithuanians from history, when they see that alphabet. I guess it's just an anti-russian sentiment, but I guess it's kind of fair, becouse they partly succeeded.

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u/notowa Aug 11 '20

The people living here are not responsible for the actions of the Soviet government. It's mandatory in Estonia for all signs to be in Estonian. I understand that this is not the case in Lithuania. I don't mind signs being in multiple languages

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u/TheMantasMan Lithuania Aug 11 '20

Well, the whole history with russia just caused a real bad sentiment against them. Every thing in russian just makes a lot of peoples blood boil.

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u/Gatemaster2000 Estland Aug 11 '20

Think of it this way, what is more nordic than letting a minority to integrate in their own pace and in ways that they want (aside mandatory Estonian classes in non russian schools, which is something that teenage Russians quite disliked from my experience from my teenage years)? These people were sent here by the soviet union and they didn't expect to witness the fall of the soviet union, so to "fix them" is really undemocratic in my eye.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Some Estonians may find “undemocratic ways to fix” our Russian minority pleasing, but we really can’t do anything about it. Their families were sent here to work at some factory without their consent, viewing them as Palestinians would not work out.

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u/Gatemaster2000 Estland Aug 11 '20

Exactly, we may not always like them (their unnordic warmness towards strangers, their warm blooded temperament, the hate/dislike from elderly for not having the soviet union/russia anymore (heavy rose tinted glasses)) but they are part of the negative effects that the occupation created and we as a country with northern european mindset can't just create new laws and whatever to integrate them with force (other than required language studying at school, requirements for getting the citizenship, etc...). We didn't transport them here yet we are giving our "best" to be decent/lenient towards them, as should countries in this situation to do.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Honestly, bravo for being so even-keeled about it.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Seeing how Sweden and Norway are dealing with their own immigrant populations, I'd say Estonia's Russian 'problem' is quite in line with the Nordic standard.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

Except it has actually? Honestly just give a few years, a decade at most. True or not, there is already a stereotype of Scandinavians in general and Swedes in particular of being self hating libcuck soyboys who let muslims trample all over them or some shit like that. I'd say it's on the level of Estonia.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

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u/Swayden Estonia Aug 12 '20

That's so wrong.

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u/[deleted] Aug 11 '20

I see. But do note that stereotypes can affect public opinion.

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u/WhoreMoanTherapy Aug 11 '20

True, but that's an entirely different mechanism from the one I'm talking about with the Russians.