A sunny March day, the temperature finally rises above five degrees, there is no wind and - suddenly sirens sound. We called them "shizeles" back then, in 1999, while NATO bombed the FRY. Now, in one of the NATO member, for a moment a familiar howl cuts through me. A slight, familiar anxiety grips me. I turn around trying to catch other people's eyes: is someone running, is there panic, is something really happening. But the street is quiet. People walk calmly, trams pass by...
U Tallinn alone, a few hundred kilometers from Russian borders. It is March 2026, the war in Ukraine has entered its fifth year. The question of who could be Putin's next potential target has long hovered over this part of Europe. U Estonia that question does not sound like abstract geopolitics, but like something that could become a reality.
The sirens continue to wail, and people continue to walk by as if they don't hear them. I enter the hotel and only then notice a notice taped to the glass: a test of the alarm system is planned. The explanation comes with a little delay, but suddenly everything makes sense - both the silence on the street and the absence of panic.
"Didn't you get an SMS notification?", the girl at the bar asks me as if she was talking about something routine and, I guess, recognizing in my look the traces of a little panic. Her name is Marina. She was born in the Soviet Union and says that her family is "mixed", and that this is a common occurrence in Tallinn. Her origins are from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, where her ancestors are from. With blue hair and eyes, he speaks calmly, without drama, like someone who is already used to the sound that still takes me back to the past.
CAREFUL PREPARATION FOR THE WORST SCENARIO
"They started last summer," he says. "They test the sirens every few months. We are preparing as if the war will start tomorrow, but I don't think it will ever happen," he adds quite convincingly. There is no discomfort in her voice. She is Estonian by nationality, but speaks both Russian and English.
The country where she grew up became a member of the European Union and NATO in 2004, 13 years after the collapse of the USSR. Estonia is one of the countries with the highest degree of digitization in Europe and among the most successful in the fight against corruption at the world level. At the same time, a carefully constructed distance from Russia is felt at every step - not only as a political narrative, but also as a daily practice.
Behind the glass doors of the Tallinn Hotel, it seems like a place where nothing happens suddenly. Trams slide on rails, people walk quickly but without nervousness, and everything - from paying a ticket to marriage and divorce - can be completed over the phone, in a few clicks.
Estonia is often described as a digital country, but this orderliness and efficiency has another dimension here: a sense of control. It's as if the system works precisely to reduce the room for uncertainty. And yet, the sound of sirens being checked every few months is a reminder that uncertainty cannot be completely eliminated.
The Ministry of Defense is clear. As of the beginning of 2026, Estonia has increased its military budget from 3,9 percent to 5,5 percent of GDP, according to senior Estonian Defense Ministry official Kaimo Kusk. "It is clear that we have entered a period of power politics. We are investing in our defense in order to avoid war," says Kusk and continues: "American, French and British NATO forces are deployed in the country. The country is prepared in case of a possible misjudgment by the Kremlin. In September of last year, when Russian aircraft entered our airspace, we raised six allied drones. The Russians withdrew, and it all lasted 12 minutes."
Twelve minutes that seem both short and too long from this perspective. In the city, however, there are no visible signs of that kind of tension. There are no soldiers on the streets, no anxiety in the conversations. If there is awareness of a possible conflict, it, like the alarm system, is organized and introduced into the routine. It seems that, even when thinking about war, Estonians do not react with panic but with a plan.
Although he does not believe in the certainty of a Russian attack on the country, Kaimo Kusk sees the eastern neighbor as a constant threat that Estonia needs to deter by investing more in defense, showing that they are ready to respond. This country bases its defense policy on lessons from the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It showed, Kusk claims, how a wrong assessment by the Kremlin can change the security picture of Europe.
"If they make a wrong assessment in Moscow, as has already happened with Ukraine, we must be able to react. You cannot trust authoritarian regimes in which decisions are made at the top without real information. That's why we prepare for different scenarios and invest in our own defense," says Kusk, alluding to Vladimir Putin's decision to attack Ukraine, to whom, he believes, no one was allowed to say that the country was ready to defend itself.
photo: k. stevanovićCAPITAL: Tallinn
Distancing from Russia
The deviation from Russia, with which it was in union during the Soviet era, is evident in Estonia. However, almost a quarter of the population is made up of people who speak Russian as their mother tongue. In the eastern parts of the country, that percentage is even higher. The border is not only geographical - it is also linguistic, historical, and sometimes political. Marina shrugs her shoulders when I ask her how it looks to the citizens of the country.
"It depends on who you ask," he says. "My parents grew up in the Soviet Union, Russian is natural to them. I studied Estonian at school, I work here, I live here, but I speak Russian with my parents. There are still people who don't feel completely part of this country."
There is no accusation in her statement, it is more of a statement. In Tallinn, where he lives, about a third of the population is Russian. In recent years, especially since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, the state's attitude towards the Russian language and symbols has become a sensitive issue. Soviet monuments were removed, the names of streets, theaters and other cultural monuments were changed, and the education system gradually switched to the exclusively Estonian language. For one, it is a logical step in consolidating national identity. For others, the silent loss of the world in which they grew up.
Aleksandar, a van driver, has a 14-year-old daughter. She is in the seventh grade of primary school and a few years ago, when the education reform was launched, she started attending classes exclusively in Estonian. Her father doesn't seem entirely happy about it. He is of Estonian citizenship, but of Russian origin.
"It's hard. The children got used to one system. My daughter attended a good part of elementary school in Russian, and then the classes were switched to Estonian. I don't speak Estonian perfectly, we speak Russian at home. It's our language, but we have to adapt," says Aleksandar, shrugging his shoulders.
Not far from the city center I meet some guys. They are from different parts of Estonia, and they came to Tallinn for a business conference. They are from Ajti, like most of the younger people in this country. They speak Estonian and, in conversation with me, switch to English. Some of them are more relaxed when they speak Russian to each other. "I don't think about politics every day," says one of them. "But after 2022, everything changed. Sometimes people look at you differently when they hear Russian. Not overtly, but you feel it." He pauses, as if looking for the right balance between honesty and caution. "I understand why. It's just… It's not always easy being in the middle."
Animosity towards Russians and the Russian language is also felt in everyday life, says Slobodan Marinković, who has been living in the capital of Estonia with his wife for several years. They moved from Serbia with their daughters because of his job. The hardest part was getting used to the climate, but everything else is much different and more organized than in Serbia, more than two thousand kilometers away. He is about to retire and although life in this Baltic country is nice, he plans to return to the south of the continent, but Serbia will not be the country where he will continue to live.
In the official narratives, things are clear: Estonia belongs to the West, its security framework is defined by membership in NATO, and the distance to Russia is strategic and long-term. Estonia is a digital country, and one of the official reasons for the abolition of Russian schools is a long-term plan - young people must prepare for the digital environment and future jobs. In addition, the lack of quality teaching staff in the Russian language is mentioned as a reason.
About 1,3 million people live in Estonia today. Almost a quarter of the population is of Russian origin, but a much smaller number have Russian citizenship. Apart from people of Estonian and Russian citizenship, there is also a third category in this country - tens of thousands of stateless people. They are the legacy of the collapse of the Soviet Union, which has not been fully resolved even after three decades.
"EUROPE STARTS HERE"
All this takes on a different dimension in the east of the country. Narva, a city right on the border with Russia, is a little more than 200 kilometers from Tallinn, but the difference seems much greater. Here, Estonia is separated from Russia by the river of the same name and a bridge about 160 meters long. On the other side of the river you can see the Russian Ivangorod. The border is physically clear and can only be crossed on foot - the crossing was closed to traffic in 2024 when renovations on the Russian side began. The easternmost border between Estonia and Russia is formed by a bridge, on the Estonian side fenced with barbed wire and large concrete pyramids, the so-called dragon's teeth, which were once used to block the way for oncoming tanks.
In the city whose slogan is "Europe starts here", border guards record a total of around 1.500 crossings in both directions during the sixteen-hour working day. When the bridge was fully passable and the working hours were uninterrupted, ten times more people passed here daily, explains Antti Ehtisalu, head of the Estonian border police in Narva, and adds that there are no incidents on his side of the border. Customs officers control all people's luggage. Travelers often come to the border by bus, cross on foot, and buses are waiting for them on the other side. As he speaks, people are dragging suitcases along the footpath, which is separated from the road by a high metal fence. "Those with smaller suitcases go across the border for a short time, to transfer goods and bring another one from there. Those with larger ones go to visit families and friends," explains Anti Ehtisalu.
The architecture in Narva is still Soviet - long blocks without terraces, gray facades, as if time had stopped a few decades earlier. The majority of the population, more than 90 percent, are people of Russian origin, and the Russian language is dominant. Estonian is heard much less often than in the capital, especially among the elderly.
"Among the elderly, there is concern about the language, but also a different view. Young people up to 35 years old want their children to learn Estonian, the elderly are afraid that their grandchildren will not speak Russian and will not be able to communicate with them", says Denis Larchenko, councilor of the city assembly.
He speaks calmly, without trying to simplify things. "The situation is complicated. A third of Narva's population, mostly the elderly, do not speak Estonian. On the other hand, about 90 percent of young people do." That difference - generational as well as linguistic - often breaks down within families, he says. "Since the beginning of the war, things have changed," he adds. "Younger people said Putin was bad, older people said nothing was black and white. It created problems at home. When the government decided to remove Russian monuments, people just stopped talking about it."
IS NARVA NEXT??
Still, despite the language and history, Denis insists on one thing: "People in Narva are not pro-Russian. They love their native language, but they don't want to be part of Russia. About 90 percent of people say they wouldn't want to live there." Politics, he adds, is not something that people here enjoy doing anyway. "Less than 15 percent of voters turned out for the last local elections." In a city on the border, it seems that the most important thing is to maintain everyday life - between languages, between countries, between different views of the past. The border is there, a few hundred meters away, but the lines that really divide people are often much less visible.
The question "Is Narva next?" (Is Narva next?) has been in the public eye since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, but here, on the street, it doesn't seem like anyone is afraid of it. While the war in Ukraine continues, residents of Narva say that the situation does not scare them, but it affects them emotionally. In Russia, they have relatives, friends, memories from which they are separated physically and by a narrative that sharpens the divisions.
Once an industrial city, Narva is today trying to transform itself into a technological and touristic one, especially on May 9. While Russia is celebrating Victory Day, and the European Union is celebrating Europe Day, parallel events are being organized on the two banks of the Narva River. In Russia, in the Ivangorod Fortress, a concert facing the Estonian side; and across the street, at Hermann's castle, the day of European unity is celebrated.
The visit to Estonia was realized as part of the "Pulse of Europe - media visits to the EU" project.
