Victory Day Parade Cancelled
The Defense League’s annual Victory Day parade was to take place in Paide this year, but will be cancelled due to the coronavirus.
The so-called victory lights will still be symbolically sent via torches across Estonia on June 23, which is also the eve of jaanipäev, St John’s Day or traditional midsummer celebrations.
Victory Day has been celebrated since 1934 and marks the victory of Estonia and neighboring Latvia in the Battle of Cesis against the Baltische Landeswehr on June 23, 1919.
Deportees to Siberia Remembered
The Estonian Institute of Human Rights conceived the idea to commemorate the victims of the June 1941 deportations with a “Wagon of Tears” on Freedom Square in Tallinn.
The railway boxcar full of balloon-tears was placed pointing east.
The names of more than 12,000 people who were effected by what happened 79 years ago were projected onto a large screen nearby. In addition to the deportees, among the names on display were also children born and raised in Siberia, and citizens who hid and fled.
Estonian Mobile Payments Startup Fortumo Sold for €40 Million
Fortumo, a mobile payment service provider company founded by three Estonians in Tartu in 2007, was sold to London company Boku for close to €40 million.
Fortumo has become one of the most successful Estonian startups.
To enable global carrier billing, Fortumo has partnered with 280 mobile operators across the world in 80 different countries and its clients include Google, Amazon and Spotify.
In addition to its headquarters in Tartu, Fortumo has offices in India, Indonesia, Spain, Singapore and Vietnam and employs over 80 people of 15 different nationalities.
This is the largest transaction in the technology sector since the sale of Skype and GrabCAD.
