Artist takes liberty with borders

  • 2011-01-13
  • From wire reports

TALLINN - The Russian embassy in Estonia made an announcement on Jan. 7, in connection with the design of Estonia’s euro coins, that accused Estonia of continuing to make attempts to revise the state border, reports National Broadcasting. “It is characteristic that in the first draft design, like the Estonian side admitted, the contours of the state differed from the reality and the author of the drawing had to correct it. This proves that, unfortunately, the repeated attempts of revising the valid borders continue, that became the reason for us withdrawing our signature from the border agreement in 2005,” the embassy says on its homepage.

The embassy said that it is symptomatic that even now it is discussed that the “artistic vision” of the author of Estonian borders is depicted on the reverse side of the Estonian euro coins. “We think that in such a fundamental question for international relations like the border line, “artistic fantasies” are inappropriate,” the embassy wrote.

The most recent scandal concerning Estonia’s borders with Russia started from a letter lawyer Sergei Seredenko, who calls himself the Russian ombudsman in Estonia, sent recently to the Russian ambassador in Tallinn, Juri Merzlyakov. Seredenko claimed in his letter that reached the media that the Estonian outline on the euro coins may include some Russian territories.
Estonian ambassador to Moscow, Simmu Tiik, refuted in an interview to radio station Echo Moskvy on Jan. 5 the claim that the map design on Estonian euro coins also includes areas behind Narva and around Petchory that used to belong to Estonia.
Tiik said that the coins depict Estonia’s current outline. The diplomat also recalled that in the draft design for the coins, made in 2007, the artist had really depicted Estonia in its former borders, but that mistake was corrected.