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Sunday, June 22, 2008

Victory Day - Estonia

June 23 is Victory Day in Estonia, which we can only assume must be a reference to the 2001 Eurovision song contest, since this nation has never won anything else. Historically, Estonia is over-run by anyone who feels like it, which is either the Russians or the Germans, though following a long period of being ruled by the Russians, nobody wants to rule Estonia - at least for the time being.

Following WWII, Estonia and Finland had about the same GDP. By 1987, the capitalist Finland's GDP per capita was $14,370 US and the socialist Estonia's GDP per capita was around $2,000. Capitalist Estonia is doing much better now, though presumably is sowing the seeds of its own destruction.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Following WWII'? I doubt Estonia could offer quite that performance after Soviet bombing raids. You must've meant 'before WWII'.

Also, it's 'Victory Day' because the victory was achieved where it counted most. War of Independence. After forcing a peace treaty on Bolsheviks on eastern front, on June 23rd Estonian forces whupped Baltic Germans in, ahem, Latvia.

Margo's Maid said...

Surely wikipedia has not let me down on this occasion...