Hornets buzz Baltic States

Kelsey Ryan / The Bulletin

Students of the Estonia trip walk down a street in the city of Tallinn. While there, students had the opportunity to study and attend lectures at the University of Tartu.

A group of Emporia State students participated in a study abroad and traveling program during the summer in the states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The focus of the trip was the effects of the former Soviet Union of the Baltic States.

The students were accompanied on the trip by Ellen Hansen, associate professor of geography and former ESU instructor Evan Emmott.

“I wanted to go to the Baltic States because my professor, Evan Emmott, was going,” said Jonny Leach, senior social science major. “Cool teachers make everything better.”

Aside from Emmett’s influence, Leach was interested in the Baltic States because of their history with as a former part of the communist Soviet Union and the States’ creation of a thriving capitalist economy within the last 18 years.

The students flew into Tallinn, Estonia where they spent three days touring the capital city. They had an opportunity to view historical landmarks and explore museums. The group stayed in hostels throughout the entire trip. In Tallinn, the hostel they stayed in had one room for the female students and teacher.

“I shared a room at the hostel with the seven women students, so there were eight of us in this one room,” Hansen said. “I remember everyone was looking around for places to plug in the blow dryers and straighteners.”

After three days in Estonia, the students took a bus to Lithuania to explore the capital city of Vilnius, followed by three days spent it Riga, Latvia.

“I really liked Vilnius,” Hansen said. “It was a neat old city and there were a lot of cool places to wander around outside of the city and it seemed less touristy than Latvia and Estonia.”

After the visit to Latvia, the students returned to Tallinn to begin the study abroad portion of the trip. The students attended lectures at a branch of the University of Tartu and had the chance to meet with parliament members, business leaders and European Union members of Estonia.

While studying in Tallinn, the lectures focused on Estonia’s transition from being a part of the Soviet Union to being an independent nation state.

“The Baltic States were part of communist Russia when it fell,” said Ellise Hauth, junior sociology major. “They woke up one morning and they were not communists anymore and so they had to figure it out. They had no way to set up a system to deal with the aftermath, so they were left to create their own capitalist society.”

The Baltic States built a new economy and social system from practically nothing. Today, less than 20 years since the fall of communism, the Balts have set up a thriving market economy, become members of the European Union and plan on switching to the Euro by 2011.

“There is a fire and tenacity in these people,” Leach said. “A strength of soul that is just unheard of here in America.”

With the accelerated growth and advancement of these Baltic States, there are also certain traces of places and people left behind by the transition to a new system. Students took a deeper look into these cities and observed violent ghettos and the dangers that stem from severe poverty.

“At one point we walked into a ghetto,” Leach said. “Our guide said ‘put your cameras away, put your cell phones away, and don’t look like tourists or you might get shot.’”

There are other negative effects of the fast changing Estonian social system. A part of the population of elderly women was used to having a comfortable position in the Soviet system. These women, who are well past the age for manual labor, have no means to retire in the new system and are now expected to do grueling work for a living.

“The saddest thing was seeing the 80 or 90 year-old-women, left behind by the new capitalist system,” Leech said. “They would be slumped up against the wall, with their hands out sort of shaking and just whimpering ‘pity me.’”

Many students feel that they learned more about the Baltic States by experiencing the countries firsthand than if they had simply heard lectures or read textbooks.

“There is a distance, intellectually and emotionally between what you learn in a book and what really goes on when the war is in someone’s home,” Leach, said. “Until you see that land and meet those people, you can’t truly understand the story that is the history.”