Early on Monday morning, commuters in Central Tallinn were met with the sight of a series of bold, bilingual advertisements dividing each side of the central Hobujaama tram stop in half, with the ads on the left, in blue, stating “Here only Estonians” and the ads on the right, in red, stating “Here only Russians.”
By Tuesday morning, the controversial ads had been replaced — by ads for Estonia 200.
ERR’s online news portal happened to catch the last of the new ads being put up at around 7:30 EET on Tuesday. The new ads, likewise in both Estonian and Russian, read, “Estonians and Russians. Attend one school.” and “Estonians and Russians. Attend one party.”
Regarding the previous day’s controversial ads, Estonia 200 chairwoman Kristina Kallas had explained to her fellow party members on Monday that the point of the initial ads was to demonstrate how all it took to divide society was one advertisement.
“A societal mirror was held up before the people of Estonia — they were shown what is a sore spot in our society,” Ms Kallas wrote. “Reactions to it demonstrated just that, that it is a sore spot.”
Source: ERR
