Amazon.com has just activated their “Look Inside” and “Search Inside” services on my book. This means that you can read the entire first chapter using amazon’s popup book reader, and also that you can enter search terms and find any references to these terms inside the book.
Say, for example, you wanted to find a description of Bistro, my favorite Tallinn restaurant in 1992. Simply go to this page, click on the book cover, enter “Bistro” in the “Search Inside This Book” box, click Go, and you’re taken to page 74 where Bistro is described as “a well-lighted cafeteria with tall round tables, no chairs, and decent pasta that cost less than ten kroons a plate.”
But don’t add Bistro to your itinerary on your next trip to Tallinn. It no longer exists.
You can search for any term you like. But please don’t search for “champanskoye,” the notorious Latvian-bottled sparkling wine. The results are slightly embarrassing.
Thank you for the memoirs! A few objections, though. Estonia is not newly independent, but reindependent (“Estonia’s occupation came to a close, Soviet troops left” is really the most accurate way to phrase it). And former Soviet? Why this formulation? Are Denmark, France or Norway former Nazi? If so, why does noone constantly emphasize this? E.g. “Denmark, the former Nazi Republic”? I know you are a good guy and a friend, please forgive the complaining.
You raise two excellent points, Jüri. With regard to the first, I’ve never come across the word “reindependent” but I like it as a more accurate description for Estonia than “newly independent”. And I hope I haven’t misled anybody through my use of “newly independent.” I do state on the very first page of the book that Estonia “regained” its independence in 1991, and elsewhere in the book I discuss the Tartu Peace Treaty and the 1918 – 1940 period of independence.
You also raise good points about the “former Soviet” tag, especially vis-a-vis Denmark, et al, and the Nazi occupations that those countries (along with Estonia) suffered. But I would submit that the “former Soviet” description, while not nearly as relevant today, was very relevant in 1992, just a year after Estonia had emerged from two generations of Soviet occupation; the vestiges of this occupation were at that time very much apparent and, for better or worse, they contributed powerfully to the experiences I had that year.
Thanks again for your insights.