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Comment by shumo | Hacker News Reader

Estonia is clean from russians not like Latvia, that's why they are centuries far from other Baltic countries.

It looks like you are the victim of some scapegoating discourse - it's very easy for corrupt politicians and other malicious interest groups to divert the public's attention from the real issues by turning some minority or loosely defined external force into "the enemy/the source of all our problems".

Here in Bulgaria, every public problem is either due to Russia's evil influence, or the US's evil influence, or the gypsies or the Turkish minority, or even sometimes the EU, but somehow the problems never seem to be caused by institutionalized corruption on a massive scale. Of course, we - the citizens - are also to blame for letting our government fall into the hands of private interests... Sadly, we haven't yet found a way to move forward like the Estonians.

This is stupid, and wrong. I worked several years in Estonia (at Skype) and I would say that more than 50% of programmers are from foreign countries. Mainly russia, but also Ukraine, latvia, Czech republic...

In Tallin, half the population is Russian, or native russian speaker.

I'm an Estonian and would like to comment this with the results from the census: Tallinn has 55% Estonians, 36% Russians(who mostly live in specific sleeping/cheap/"slum" districts), and others.

I'm glad you raised this to counter the mis-information posted by the parent. I also worked for several years in Tallinn (I'm half-Estonian, half-Australian), and the information provided by the parent ss simply not true. This reinforces my belief many ex-pats live in a bit of a bubble, especially if they don't learn the local language or try and integrate more.

Back OT - I can keep my Estonian business ticking over from Australia entirely via the internet. I have a local (Estonian) accountant, but using my Estonian ID card I can digitally sign documents that need 'sending' or I can open such documents sent to me from government departments. Such possibilities really much life much easier as regards documentation, tax returns etc.

Also the percentage of foreign programmers is high in international companies. Local or small IT companies mostly hire Estonians - for no specific reason imho, maybe just to keep the atmosphere native.

That is racism.

It's not racism. On the contrary, what you have shown, is ignorance of the facts on the ground.

They work with what they have available. Knowing Eastern European companies well, they are tight on funds, so they cannot spend anything for international headhunting. Also, locals are cheaper - if they want to earn more, they will move to the West. The smaller companies are happy, that they are surviving at all.

Nationalism is a distinct "ism" from racism.

It's a form of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Ethnic_nationalism

I didn't say they turn down foreigners, they just don't get applications from them. Also, Latvians and Ukrainians and such are white.

Do you know what racism, or even race is? You can be white but not Estonian, how does racism apply there?

What is "white"? Why do you need do differentiate "Estonians" from other kinds of people?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism#Ethnic_nationalism

There is a history of racism in Estonia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division...

Hey, Skyper, greetings from another one! Skype Tallinn Engineering, as you well know, grew from the small all-Estonian core team to a ~500 people org by the time I left. The team was very international and many good programmers were from elsewhere but never a majority.

"Clean" how?

Wikipedia says 1/4 of Estonians are Russian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia#Demographics

Please do not mix citizenship with ethnicity. There are lots of Estonian citizens of Russian origin.

HN is not the place for this, check your xenophobia at the door please.

Because Russians are somehow 'unclean' or 'dirty'?

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I can't stand this 'X' are bad attitude where 'X' is some huge group. Russians come in all shapes and sizes, just like every other country's citizens.

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