International

Siim Sööt, Honorary Consul of Estonia in Chicago This is the first of three articles that explore where people of Estonian ancestry live in the United States. This article focuses on the number of individuals of Estonian ancestry (hereafter called US Estonians) and the recent change in that number. The...

Karl Altau / JBANC On August 1, 2023, the Joint Baltic American National Committee (JBANC) hosted a visit and briefing in the United States Congress for rising high-school seniors from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The three dozen students had completed a three-week program in Maine under the auspices of the...

June 26 – July 2, 2025Stockholm-Narva-Tallinn The 2025 Global Estonian Cultural Festival, ESTO, will be hosted in Stockholm, Tallinn, and Narva from June 26 to July 2, 2025. The ESTO Festival has brought together Estonians from around the world since 1972 to celebrate their shared culture, heritage, and achievements –...

Members of the Riigikogu's Economic Affairs Committee want to reopen talks with the government about Estonia's participation in the World EXPO in Japan. They question whether denying entrepreneurs opportunities is the best way to save money. The government, after Minister of Economic Affairs Tiit Riisalo's (Eesti 200) decision, ruled out...

The short-lived June 23-24 Russian mutiny led by the Wagner Group’s Yevgeny Prigozhin placed the instability of Russia on full display, from the uncertain domestic military response to the coup attempt to the dissonance of Putin’s message labeling Prigozhin and Wagner as traitors. The fact remains that the Wagner Group...

It would seem implausible that an Estonian would have any role in the Russification of those living in the Russian-occupied Donbas area of Ukraine. But this particular Estonian is fully aware of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant in October 2022 for Russian President Vladimir Putin, in this instance, for...

Karl Altau / JBANC The NATO Summit will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from July 11 to 12, 2023. Depending on Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive against Russian occupiers, we will soon find out the possible path for Ukraine’s further integration with the West. Ukraine has already been offered an EU Membership...

On May 19, 2023, the Estonian American National Council (EANC) held a town hall for purposes of gathering input and ideas on the future of the beloved international Estonian festival known as ESTO. The event was held over Zoom, attended by approximately 75 Estonian Americans from across the USA, a...

There are many excellent refugee memoirs. Jaak Treiman’s “Carried by a Magic Fan: Memoir of an Estonian Refugee Family” expands that tradition by offering three perspectives of one family’s refugee journey. He then carries the story forward by chronicling refugee political activities that followed their settlement into new homes. During...

On Tuesday, May 9th, the Office of the Prosecutor General launched criminal proceedings to investigate the use of Ukraine aid sums by Estonian NGO Slava Ukraini. Proceedings were launched based on the embezzlement section of the Penal Code. The Estonian proceedings were launched the day after similar proceedings in Ukraine....