Aliens in a Land They Call Home

By John Kohan/Moscow

An elderly couple, ethnic Russians afraid to identify themselves beyond their first names Ivan and Natalya, walk slowly across the bridge that links the Estonian city of Narva to the Russian community of Ivan-Gorod. They used to make the trip easily, before the break-up of the Soviet Union turned the Narva River into the official boundary between two independent countries. Above the huge medieval fortress that guards the west bank flies the Estonian flag. On the eastern shore, a rugged rampart displays the Russian tricolor. On the bridge below, lines of pedestrians and cars move slowly between customs posts set up at both ends. "We built this city," says Ivan, pointing back to Narva as he and his wife make their way to the Russian side, where bread and milk are cheaper. "Now they are tightening the noose around our neck to make us leave."

Since the collapse of the Soviet empire, about 24 million ethnic Russians have found themselves living in foreign countries, outside the boundaries of their historic homeland. The hundreds of thousands of Russian workers who flooded into the Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia after the 1940 Soviet annexation are viewed with suspicion now, as fifth columnists who are opposed to the nationalist aspirations of the new states. Many Russians have not helped matters any by refusing to learn local languages.

. The problem has reached the boiling point in Estonia, where ethnic Russians and other Russian speakers make up 40% of the 1.6 million population. Worried about becoming a minority in their own homeland, Estonians in the State Assembly passed a package of laws that would deny citizenship -- and hence employment -- to anyone who had moved to Estonia after 1940 and who failed to pass a very complicated language test. Last month another law was passed requiring noncitizens to apply for either Estonian or Russian citizenship or to register as aliens and face possible deportation. "We want to determine where they stand," explains an Estonian Foreign Ministry official. "They cannot remain citizens of a nonexistent Soviet Union." But given the difficulties in obtaining Estonian citizenship, most Russians will be forced to become foreigners.

Reaction to the aliens act has been swift and shrill. In the northeast border region around Narva, where ethnic Russians constitute 95% of the population, local Russians plan to hold a plebiscite this week on the question of regional autonomy -- a move the Estonians have denounced as "unconstitutional." Western governments have voiced concern about growing discrimination against minorities. But the harshest rebuke has come from Moscow, where Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev denounced the law as "quiet apartheid" and "ethnic cleansing in white gloves."

Under pressure from conservative opponents to take a tougher stand on the ethnic Russian question, Boris Yeltsin bluntly warned the Estonians not to misinterpret "Russia's goodwill." Moscow, he pointed out, had "ways of reminding them" of geopolitical realities. The Kremlin has already put the withdrawal of former Soviet forces from Estonia on hold to protest local mistreatment of Russians.

Seeking to defuse the crisis, Estonian President Lennart Meri consulted with European legal experts. On their advice, Meri refused to sign the aliens act into law and last week called the Estonian parliament back into an emergency session, where more fuel was added to the fire when legislators proposed holding an emergency session to discuss suspending Narva's city council. Should this happen, tensions could get out of hand. As Vladimir Khomyakov, a Narva city-council member, brusquely put it, "This is our homeland; we have no other. The only way out now is autonomy. Otherwise, there will be war."

The irony is that few Russians living in Estonia want to secede completely < from the Baltic state. Compared with the rest of the old Soviet empire, the economic reforms that Estonia has carried out in the brief period of independence are nothing short of miraculous. It is the only former Soviet republic with a stable, convertible currency, and the monthly rate of inflation has dropped in one year from 90% to 1.7%. Unless the rival ethnic communities can turn their present dialogue of the deaf into real cooperation, however, Estonia may yet succumb to the fever of nationalism that has so much of Europe in its grip.

With reporting by Yuri Zarakhovich/Narva