American Idiot in Estonia

Before this trip, I’d never considered Estonia. Never given it any thought. But this trip happened to be stopping there and we’d booked an excursion to take in the “highlights”. The first stop was the The Estonian Memorial to the Victims of Communism, located in Tallinn, is dedicated to the over 75,000 individuals who were murdered, imprisoned, or deported by the Soviet regime between 1940 and 1991.  The site opened in 2018, it consists of two main sections. The first being memorial walls that bear the names of the deceased and a reminder of people with unknown fates. The towering dark walls permit a glimpse at the sky above which was blue.

Once you exit the walls the exhibit continues with a small apple orchard - planted to symbolize hope (because apple trees do not immediately yield fruit). Websites refer to this portion of the exhibit as "Home Garden," ‘where longing for home and the dream of freedom intertwine.’ There is a wall of bees depicted as well.

Our tour guide acknowledged that the memorial doesn't account for all who were lost - many fled Estonia, while others are simply unaccounted for. He also indicated that the numbers of humans lost paled in comparison to Jews killed in the holacoust, adding, that although less of an atrocity it was an atrocity all the same.

From the memorial, we continued on to the the Song Festival Grounds in the Kadriorg district of the capital city Tallinn where the Estonia Music Festival is held. The festival dates back to 1869 & is one of the largest choral events in the world. It is typically staged every five years in June or July, and since 1928  it's been held at the venue we visited. The festival features more than 30,000 singers performing to an audience of 80,000. Performers such as Elton John, Lady Gaga, Metallica, AC/DC, Tina Turner, & many others have performed at the festival over the years. This festival isn't just a concert - it drove freedom by acting as a powerful tool for non-violent resistance, cultural preservation, and mass national unity against Soviet occupation. In the summer of 1988, an estimated 300,000 people gathered at the Tallinn Song Festival Grounds to sing forbidden patriotic songs together. These large, peaceful crowds displayed incredible national solidarity, making it impossible for the Soviet regime to suppress them with violence. drove freedom by acting as a powerful tool for non-violent resistance, cultural preservation, and mass national unity against Soviet occupation.

We were surprised to learn that Estonia is as young as it was - its independence so new.

Our guide told us that television programming from when he was growing up was Soviet propaganda - which highlighted all that was wrong in the US and other capitalist countries. However, the residents of Estonia were able to pick up channels from Finland, which presented a very different view.

American Idiot, Green Day

Welcome to a new kind of tension

All across the alienation

Where everything isn't meant to be okay

Television dreams of tomorrow

We're not the ones who're meant to follow

For that's enough to argue