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Comment by O__________O | Hacker News Reader

At this point even having a Russian speaking population is potentially a liability regardless if they’re pro-Russian or not, since Russia will just spin whatever pro-Estonian or anti-Russian sentiment they say to be propaganda and Russia will just say they obviously need to be liberated so they’re able to express their support for Russia.

While only roughly 300,000 to 450,000 of 1.3 million of Estonians have ethnic ties to Russia, 73% are near Estonia’s border with Russia:

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/europe/et-peop...

This YouTube provides an animated history of Estonian borders:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HBA0xDHZjko

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For context: in USSR a person could not choose to move to live in another area, city or town. that was VERY difficult to do (was possible by marriage). Baltic countries and any close to border areas were especially controlled. But military, KGB and Communist party could appoint people to live in Baltic countries. those were "special" people - that proved their allegiance I can say. That is why they are a challenge to Estonia and other Baltic countries.

My understanding is the Estonian-Russian border as it is currently has been in place over 100 years, is this inaccurate?

Yes, but most Russians living in Estonia are post-1945 colonists or descendants of post-1945 colonists. I had imagined that the bulk of the population have a long and storied history in Estonia, but they don't. For example, no ethnic Estonians were allowed to return to Narva after the war, and was instead settled overwhelming mostly by Russian colonists. Narva is the third biggest city in Estonia, and 88% Russian. Pre-colonisation it was majority Estonian.

So the border is old but the ethnic borders are very new and based on very recent Russian colonisation.

Specific to Narva, Wikipedia has a breakdown of its historical affiliation and invasion, which date back 1000s of years:

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Narva

Of note, “The status of Narva was resolved in a July 1917 referendum, when the district population, at that time roughly equally divided between ethnic Russians and Estonians, voted to attach itself to the newly autonomous and soon to be independent republic of Estonia.”

This is not true. USSR existed for some 70 years and there were different times.

One could move quite freely by 1970-ish.

Except that you could not have permanent residence in Moscow and Leningrad.

that sure sounds like a question in dire need of a solution!

Only if you consider a 100 year old border a dire situation. Otherwise it would make way more sense economically for Russia to offer to resettle anyone interested no longer being Estonian instead of invading yet another sovereign country.

The present border is more like 80 year old, it was adjusted by the USSR (favouring Russia) after the Baltics were annexed in 1940.

However, it generally follows the pre-1917 borders of the Governorates of Estland and Livonia.

Map showing the annex your referencing:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=352476

I was unable to find a map overlaying pre-1917 borders and current borders.

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