Something has been irritating me since I came back here. There is no news in this country…at least not really in an accessible or convenient way, and it was not always this way.
Once upon a time (but for a brief period, in the late 1990s) there used to be something that could be called a free press in this country. It wasn’t the most professional, it often looked pretty amateur, but it had articles of interest and opinionated views. Now it is completely gone. I could see the signs of this coming when I lived here before. The government changed in 2000, after a spade of bombings (as you will remember well, lemurana!), none of which was ever really satisfactorily solved, but all of which were blamed on Chechens. After that things got a lot harder for those of us of “non Slavic origins” and the government started insisting, for example, that we get tested for AIDS every 6 months and carry around a document claiming we were AIDS free. Now, in addition, we have to be tested for leprosy as well, what fun!
It was at that time too that the interesting newspapers started disappearing. There were take-overs….or journalists (like those of the old NTV) would show up to work and discover that all the locks had been changed. When I lived here before this problem was already clear but it was still in process, but now three years later it seems complete. I bought a Russian “news” magazine on the metro the other day, as I had nothing else to read, and I read the top three stories: Putin met with a group of tourists at the Kremlin and kissed a little boy, Nicole Kidman married Keith Urban in Australia, and the son of a Russian business man has redecorated his flat, in an effort to start his new adult life, “I will never be poor” he assures us “in every country in the world I would find a way to succeed.”
That is news?
Discouraged, I tried for the foreign press. The Moscow times used to have ok articles, but even it is looking boring these days, but I suppose it can be called the last remotely interesting newspaper here. Then I decided to track down the Economist. I used to buy it every week to entertain me on my train rides back and forth to the faculty. In London it come out Thursday night, or everywhere else in the country Friday morning. The same was true when I lived in Paris, it was always in the stands by Friday, and it was available in most stands and kiosks around the city centre. In Budapest as well, it was for sale by Friday afternoon, and in most central areas. Here, however, it is available only in a handful of kiosks (I have counted three thus far) in the very centre, near the major 5 star hotels. The most annoying thing is that it arrives, for some odd reason, one week late! It is on the stands by Wednesday or Thursday, or the day before the next issues appears in London. I don’t know why this is, but it is not the Economist: my mother lives on a different continent and gets her subscription economist by Monday at the latest. So if it can fly across the ocean, why can’t it make it in a timely fashion from one part of Europe to the other? What happens to it? Is it held up at Customs? The same goes for the other international news papers, they arrive late, and are available only in a few places.
Now of course, some people get around these issues. I know some companies have the Financial Times or the Economist delivered to their offices, and that those arrive more or less on time. But this represents the minority of the population who has access to these privileges. There is also the internet, where you can read pretty much what ever you want.
But what if you are an average person in this country, who for example, doesn’t read English or German fluently? Or what if you haven’t got regular internet access, as many people don’t? what are you supposed to do then? I used to make fun of expats who insisted in reading only the news from their home countries, but at the moment here there is not much else.
When I go back to England, the first thing I will do on my very first Saturday back is buy a nice, big, fat Guardian and read the whole thing from cover to cover. It will take me the whole day no doubt, but it will be a great pleasure!!!!
i always feel somehow relieved when i arrive in tallinn. i dont know why. perhaps it is my memories from when i was younger and arriving here always meant a shopping holiday away from russia, where, in those days, there was nothing. maybe because the place always seems so civilised: the streets are clean, the people friendly, and no one pushes and shoves. maybe because my family has good friends here who always showed me around and made me feel at home. i dont know.
