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I fell in love with Estonia back in the early 1990s, and moved there in 2005, planning to make Estonia my base for the rest of my life. Over the years I visited many places in Estonia, photographing interesting or unique sites and collecting the photos on this website. It was a side hobby to show the world what a beautiful country Estonia is. Unfortunately, in 2014, the Estonian Financial "Intelligence" Unit, in an attempt to scare people away from Bitcoin, decided to make an example of me for having my own Bitcoin price calculation site and having traded small amounts of Bitcoin with friends and acquaintances. Other more prolific traders were left alone, as I was a foreigner and probably too easy to identify. The FIU had a secret interpretation of the law, which they wanted to test on someone, and I was the "lucky" person they could test it on. In the best Soviet traditions, Estonian courts rubber stamped whatever the police wanted to do, regardless that no-one knew about this interpretation before hand. The courts even allowed them to try to force me to testify against myself, thinking up fancy excuses of why that should be permitted. Clearly in Estonia the law is applied as strictly as possible to the individual while the state can get away with just about anything. The contrast with Estonia's claim to be a technology embracing, open, western style democracy, could not have been starker. The harassment resulted in a legal battle that has already lasted several years and cost me a significant amount of money. A few months after the Estonian state initiated hostilities against me, we reluctantly concluded that it was best to leave behind the country I once loved. Thus I left with my Estonian wife and children. Needless to say that my love for Estonia has cooled significantly, and due to the fact that we no longer live in Estonia I am not able to add very much to this site. Of course it is still a beautiful country, in spite of the fact that state institutions are corrupt and hypocritical. Still worth a visit, but better be skeptical about the hype, and avoid living there. |
