Under American eyes

  • 2006-03-22
  • Compiled by Elizabeth Celms, Paul Morton and Tim Ochser

The world is a big place, and the population of the three Baltic states together barely matches that of New York. So it's not surprising that after the euphoria of the Flower Revolution, stories about Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are often relegated to the "news of the weird" section in the American press.

Even when they take the countries seriously, many experienced journalists still get some basic things wrong. Here's a small sampling of 10 years' worth of coverage of our stomping ground from The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Sept. 28, 1996 (LAT) - Defense Secretary William J. Perry says that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are not ready for full membership in NATO. In April 2004, the three Baltic states finally did join the alliance, prompting the United States to ask, just what can these small nations contribute? Now that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania had joined NATO against Russian opposition, what were the Defense Department's plans for defending them? How much would this cost? Would American troops and nuclear weapons have to be deployed in these three countries? How many? But what most forgot to ask: did they check with Perry?

Oct. 19, 1996 (LAT) - A story headlined "Sense of Betrayal May Topple Lithuania's Communists Election" covers the second parliamentary elections since re-independence. "There is already a mood of deep despair in this country. I don't want to imagine what the mood will be like if the communists manage to stay in power," President Vytautas Lansbergis is quoted as saying. Must the American media always take a communist angle in its Baltic election coverage? After all, there were 23 other parties running. Happily, things have greatly improved since Lithuania joined the EU. The phrase "ex-Soviet state" has been replaced by "post EU accession state," just so American readers are clear how things stand.

Nov. 9, 1997 (NYT) 's Dr. Vamik Volkan, a University of Virginia psychiatrist, recalls his role as a mediator at talks between Russian and Estonian representatives in 1993. "'Big-shot parliamentarians spent hours at a rabbit-elephant' role-playing game to understand how they could coexist peacefully," the article quotes Volkan. Apparently the strategy led to a breakthrough during the negotiations. Perhaps the rest of the world will now follow Estonia's example. One wonders if all our current troubles could have been solved if, back in 2001, Bush, Chirac, Blair, Schroeder, Sharon, Arafat and Putin had just done a few rounds of rock, paper, scissors or even a board game like Monopoly. It would probably have been a good idea to avoid Risk.

Nov. 10, 1999 (NYT) 's After George W. Bush, then merely a governor of Texas and prospective presidential candidate, spectacularly fails a reporter's pop quiz to name the leaders of India and Pakistan, Vice President Al Gore shows off his own international expertise to a radio interviewer. "Not knowing the names, I think that's kind of understandable," says Gore. A mini-routine follows: "I had just been talking…with Ion Sturza, the prime minister of Moldova. We're old friends. We actually met through a mutual friend, Lennart Meri, the president of Estonia, of course."

May 6, 2000 (NYT) 's The paper runs a map (accompanying an article about a World War II-era German army base in Lithuania) that labels the country to the north of Lithuania as Estonia. This huge oversight upset a great many people belonging to the country commonly known as Latvia, which is generally agreed to be located between Lithuania to its south and Estonia to its north.

May 13, 2004 (LAT) - Lithuanian Gintaras Petrikas, who allegedly cheated investors of $10 million, is apprehended by the FBI in Burbank, California. The investigation initially began in Tallinn, where an FBI agent received a request for help from the Lithuanian government. Petrikas was thought to be hiding in New Jersey, and the case was sent to the agency's Newark field office. Agents discovered his fingerprints on an application for a liquor license to the state of California. Good work, gumshoe. But what we want to know is, why hide out in Burbank? According to FBI police statistics, there were 3,107 incidents of crime reported in the LA satellite city of Burbank in 2004, while there were a mere 1,121 crimes recorded in the entire country of Lithuania that same year. Our guess: it just comes down to the numbers.

Sept. 14, 2004 (LAT) 's An article covers a Soviet-era prison in Liepaja, Latvia that has been transformed into a tourist attraction where "people pay to revisit 20th-century miseries on 'extreme' holidays where they are bullied and interrogated." The lead smirks that the organization chosen to save the infamous prison, Partnership to Save Karosta, contains the "well-chosen Latvian initials…KGB." The old communist hell, in its current incarnation, doesn't sound all that different from the Alcatraz prison in San Francisco, which has become one of the most popular park sites in America. Still, one wonders if anyone would have the guts 's along with the complete lack of sensitivity - to start old-time slave holidays on a South Carolina plantation.

Oct. 24, 2004 (NYT) 's A special recounts a nostalgia tour of Brooklyn via six old subway cars, reserved for fans from across the country. The text included an erroneous report by one man recounting his experiences of metros around the world, including those in Latvia and Estonia. Considering that neither country has a metro system, we can only assume that he mistakenly confused London and Paris with Riga and Tallinn. Easy mistake 's happens all the time.

Dec. 8, 2004 (NYT) 's In a column entitled "A Call to Arms," Nicholas Kristof makes light of some of the smaller countries making up the Iraq war coalition, as a way of contrasting the current situation to World War II, or even the first Gulf War, when all the big boys were involved. Among Kristof's targets: Estonia, the "lovely postage-stamp-size member." One week later, the NYT publishes a sobering letter to the editor from the head of the Joint Baltic American National Committee. "Yes, Estonia is only the size of Denmark," writes Karl Altau, "but the sacrifices and dedication of its forces fighting in Iraq have been disproportionately great."

Dec. 14, 2004 (NYT) 's A story states, "alcohol is literally flowing into the former Soviet Baltic republics." The article explains how smugglers used an underwater hose more than a half-mile long to pump about three tons of vodka daily from Ivangorod in northwestern Russia to Narva, in eastern Estonia, to get around Estonia's steep excise duty. This is a fine example of the sort of stories about the Baltic states which are most likely to get foreign press coverage. There are no shortages of quirky stories about alcohol excess in the Baltics, from record-breaking feats of beer consumption by an unnamed Latvian man to the drunk Estonian who got into a fight with a polar bear at Tallinn Zoo. (That one was covered in TBT #417). He lost his hand.

Jan. 22, 2006 (NYT) 's Estonia's post-Soviet evolution reaches its logical conclusion with Tallinn being dubbed "Party Capital of the Year." An analysis rich in tortured comparisons follows. The headline calls Tallinn "An Affordable Vegas on the Baltic." And then there's this doozy: "How did a city smaller than Fresno, California, (population about 400,000) in a former Soviet backwater explode into a hot spot whose 'Hedonist Guide' companions include the likes of Madrid and Miami?"