Tallinn prepares to host the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest, the largest international event ever staged in the Baltic states. 

By Michael Tarm

If you were in Estonia last year and didn’t hear it, you had to have been in a coma. At 10 minutes to midnight, May 12, a collective roar of exhilaration rose up from virtually every home, hamlet and street-side bar in the country: this close-knit nation of 1.4 million had just trumped favorites France and Sweden to win one of the most widely watched competitions on Planet Earth—the Eurovision Song Contest.
       Along with most of his countrymen, then-Prime Minister Mart Laar jumped out of his chair in front of his TV when it became clear Estonia's duo of Tanel Padar and Dave Benton (photo) had won. Nearby, thousands of people streamed onto Tallinn's streets to wave blue, black and white Estonian flags. A banner headline in the SL Õhtuleht newspaper the next day aptly captured the nation-wide sentiment: "Unbelievable!" it read.
       The euphoria may have struck outsiders as a bit much. But for this little-known nation—sometimes self-conscious about whether the outside world knows where or what Estonia is, or even that it exists at all—the Eurovision win offered a rare and deeply gratifying opportunity to bask in the international limelight. For Estonians, it was the ultimate coming-out party after so many decades behind the Iron Curtain. 
       During communist rule, authorities disallowed broadcasts of the Eurovision Song Contest, seen as a symbol of capitalist decadence. Some Estonians living in Tallinn, however, were able to watch them by turning their TV antennas to the northwest and picking up broadcasts from the Finnish capital, 90 kilometers across the Baltic Sea. 
       "When you watched Eurovision in Soviet days, it was almost a kind of feeling of protest," said the 41-year-old Laar, who as a teenager recalled seeing Sweden's ABBA win the 1974 Contest with Waterloo. There were even several underground Eurovision fan clubs, whose members secretly passed around crude recordings of the latest Song Contest tunes. 
       But it wasn't the past most Estonians thought of when they won the contest in Copenhagen last year. 
       Just before the big win, Estonians had begun discussing how they could raise the country's international profile—in a bid to draw more tourists and yet more investment. 
       The shock victory, which gave Tallinn the right to host the 2002 Contest, fit in, to say the least, with Estonian ambitions to make a mark in the world. 
       At least 300 million people worldwide watch the event on television each year, and thousands of journalists and assorted VIPs can be expected to visit the Contest host city. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this one out: a third-grader could grasp that this was a public relations opportunity of a lifetime for Estonia.
       A headline in a Foreign Ministry press release that week echoed the official glee: "Eurovision in Estonia—A Billion-Dollar Advertisement for a Tiny State."
       Between last year's Song Contest victory and the Estonian-hosted event this year, name recognition should presumably no longer be a problem. More people will have no doubt heard the word Estonia on those two nights than at any time in history. For better or worse, Estonia is likely to become widely known as "that country that hosted the 2002 Eurovision Song Contest."
       Estonians are determined to ensure that any lingering impressions of their country are good ones. 
       Between each of the 24 performances on the night of the televised Contest, the hosts will be able to run short clips about Estonia. The value of what will essentially be Estonian tourism commercials is probably beyond estimation; suffice to say that most national tourism directors would give their right arms to be able to do the same for their countries. 
       Estonia probably has more to gain than countries that have staged the Song Contest in the past, like Ireland, Britain or France. Those countries could have safely assumed that viewers knew at least something about them, however superficial i.e. that France has fine wine, that Britain has a queen and that Ireland has good pubs.
       Estonians say that they, at best, have to assume viewers won't know anything at all-or that some may even have vaguely negative preconceived notions. 
       Even though Estonia is widely seen as one of the most progressive and successful ex-communist states, Estonians complain that their country is too often lumped into the same basket as the flunkies of post-Soviet reform, like Belarus, simply because it was once occupied by the Soviet Union. 
       One question that circulated abroad reflected the knee-jerk skepticism about an ex-communist country winning the right to host the Big Event: Could the Estonians organize and pay for the 2002 contest? 
       The resounding response from Estonians was, "We can, and will-thank you very much!" Expressions of doubt appeared to fortify Estonian resolve to put on a show that is as smooth-running and memorable as possible.

Also see a CITY PAPER interview with the executive producer of the 2002 Song Contest...here. 

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