ERR News - A last vestigial trace of the 1990s Estonian success story Hansapank is no more.
The Latvian and Lithuanian subsidiaries of Swedbank Estonia were sold to the parent Swedbank AB on June 28, in a straightforward financial transaction that had some sentimental significance because of its history. The units were established in 1993 and 1999 respectively, back when the bank was a 100 percent Estonian-owned entity called Hansapank. Hansa-pank was acquired by Swedbank in 2004.

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Published: July 09 2011

ERR News - This summer, the National Heritage Board will hunt ancient shipwrecked sailboats with the help of an underwater robot and sonar.
Historical relics lying on the seafloor have been less explored in Estonia than the castle walls and spiritual groves on dry land, reported the newspaper Meie Maa. Sea-based cultural heritage structures were placed under protection in 1999, but work to preserve them has only been underway for about five years.

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Published: June 24 2011

ERR News - On June 9, European Union ministers approved a compromise made by the European Parliament and Council of the EU to establish the headquarters of the EU's IT-agency in Tallinn.
Estonia and France had been tussling over the rights to host the new agency until they reached a sharing agreement last year. The body will be inaugurated in 2012.
Media outlets had earlier reported that Tallinn's bid to host the agency's headquarters was a done deal, however the June 9 decision made at the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting in Luxembourg makes it official.

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Published: June 24 2011

On May 17th the Estonian Pavilion (Pantiero 212) at the Cannes Festival 2011 celebrated the international film project 60 Seconds of Solitude in Year Zero, a non-profit project dedicated to preserve the freedom of cinema in 35mm film.
60 directors from around the world will each contribute a one-minute cinematic postcard to be screened on Tallinn Bay, alongside Baltic Sea at the end of August 2011.
The film itself will be sacrificed through fire during projection, and will be never screened again. This is not an act of defiance, but as a love poem, it will be only seen and read once.

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Published: June 19 2011

ERR News -A poll conducted in Russia found that 30 percent of those surveyed consider Estonia among the most hostile nations to their country, making it the fifth least friendly to the Russian Federation in their eyes.
The nationwide survey, which was conducted in May by the Levada-Center pollsters, asked respondents to name the five nations that they considered the most friendly to Russia, and the five least friendly, Interfax reported.

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Published: June 19 2011

ERR News - Events across the nation on June 4 marked the 127 birthday of Estonia's blue, black and white flag.
The tricolor emerged at sunrise, as always, atop the medieval tower called Pikk Hermann on the capital's Toompea hill. Orchestras and choirs accompanied its hois-ting.
At noon, schoolchildren and the Defense Forces carried 127 flags to the historical Endla Theater in Pärnu – where the Republic of Estonia was first declared independent in 1918.

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Published: June 19 2011

Keemia is a subject you learned at school – chemistry. The science of matter and the changes it undergoes. Yet these days, if something in Eesti is spoken about as being keemia, it's not good, at least not where food is concerned. A child wanting a bright pink popsicle might be warned "Ära seda söö, see on puhas keemia" – "Don't eat that, it's "completely chemical" (in make-up), i.e. a product of the chemical industry and not natural.

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Published: June 06 2011

ERR News  – New figures from Statistics Estonia show that 5,294 people moved out of the country last year, about 14 percent more than in 2009. At the same time, immigration dropped to 2,810, down from last year's decade high of 3,880.
The emigration figure, which represents 0.4 percent of the population, is generally in line with numbers seen since Estonia joined the EU in 2004. These range between 4,300 to 5,500 emigrants per year.
The vast majority of those who left Estonia last year, 3,475, were headed for Finland. But Estonia made up for part of the loss with immigration from Finland, which totaled 1,020.

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Published: June 06 2011