Thursday, October 28, 2021

Estonia prima ballerina Larissa Kaur 80

On the 31th of October 2021, my mother, a long-time Estonian National Opera and Ballet Theater’s prima ballerina, Larissa Kaur, will be 80 years old. Prima ballerina Larissa Kaur has been dancing for more than 20 years on the stage of the Estonian theater. Her roles include the Black and White Swan in “Swan Lake”, the main part in “Sleeping Beauty”, and many other great roles. It was a happy time for the Estonian ballet. That also meant personal close acquaintances with the world-famous ballet artists to my mother, such as Rudolf Nuriev in St. Petersburg. For ten years, Larissa Kaur also danced in Astoria and in the Viru variety theatre. Larissa Kaur was one of the most beautiful women in Estonia in the 60's who, besides being a prima ballerina in Estonia, was also a photomodel of the largest and most popular fashion magazines in Estonia and Eastern Europe.




Tuesday, March 2, 2021

Gorby 90

Someone said that Reagan, Gorbachev and Mandela had the greatest influence on the events of the second half of the last century. They changed the world. Reagan has yet to receive a Nobel Prize. Socialistic Western Europe does not yet understand what this American titan is doing. Gorbachev received the Nobel Prize. He came to give the world a chance to be free.
Estonia and all of Eastern Europe did not miss this opportunity. When I was young, I still remember the times when Misha Gorbachev visited Tallinn. Our historic meeting took place near the Technical University. I was walking with my dog in the Mustamäe forest when a motorcade of large limousines flew through the pine forest towards the sixth building of the university. It was a strange situation. The roads were cleared of snow. Young pine forest Mustamäe, me with a spaniel, winter and snow, and the Kremlin dreamer is looking out of the window! In the eyes of Gorbachev, one could read a gloomy understanding that here, probably, they already live a different life than in the Soviet expanses…
2011 this great man celebrated his 80th anniversary, not in Moscow but in Albert Hall in London. Because he has long been a global man. And his guests were the whole free world.

Thursday, January 21, 2021

Our Academician 98

Estonian academician Mikhail Bronstein celebrates his 98th anniversary on the 23 of January. Academician Bronstein is one of those intellectuals from St. Petersburg who came to Estonia as a lecturer and made a career in Estonia that perhaps would have been impossible in conservative Soviet centres. His contribution in raising our elite has been invaluable. Therefore, it is logical that Bronstein also contributed much to the process of restoring Estonia's independence by supporting his former students.

Bronstein is the economist who reached Gorbachev's adviser’s status. It is he who owns the idea of ​​agro-industrial complexes, which Mikhail Gorbachev, who had just reached the top of the Kremlin Olympus at the time, put forward. There is no doubt that this activity supported Gorbachev's movement to become a leader of an empire and changed the course of world history.

The vitality of academician Bronstein has been astonishing. He was literally a teacher to President Lennart Meri, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip and many others. Bronstein is also an honorary supervisor of my doctoral thesis, which I defended in St. Petersburg. Congratulations grand old man of Estonian science!