Bearing the Brunt: The Effect of COVID 19 and Socioeconomic Disparities on Estonia’s Russian Speaking Minority

Abstract

On December 10th of 2020 Estonia’s eastern county of Ida-Viru became the first Estonian county to top a 14 day average of 1000 COVID infection per 100,000 inhabitants. Ida-Viru would go on to average an infection rate between 900 and 1200 for the next several months. The capital city Tallinn soon followed Ida-Viru’s example, breaking the 1000 per day barrier on February 25th (Kooronakaart). What is significant about both Ida Viru and the Lasnamae district of Tallinn—apart from them representing the first major outbreaks in Estonia and their continued low vaccination rates—is that both areas are majority Russian speaking (that is the majority of citizens and residents speak Russian as their primary language). Lasnamae’s population is roughly 60% Russian speaking, while Ida Viru—which contains the city of Narva—is upwards of 75% Russian speaking (Statistics Estonia). This raises the question: “Why were these heavily Russian speaking areas of Estonia hit disproportionately hard during this Spring 2021 COVID Wave?” Taking data from Estonia’s COVID 19 database, the 2017 EVS, and Estonian censuses, this paper uses the COVID 19 pandemic as a lens through which to evaluate ongoing socioeconomic disparities within Estonia as they relate to the Russian speaking minority.