"I looked Yeltsin straight in the eyes and spoke and spoke and spoke—until I saw his first smile. I knew then the ice had been broken."

"In my family, everything that happened in the world was analyzed from one point of view: Did it prolong the agony of the Soviet totalitarian system or did it shorten that agony."

Lennart Meri:
A Brief Chronology

1929 Lennart Meri is born in Tallinn, during the first period of Estonian independence. His father is a leading Estonian diplomat, Georg Meri.

1935-1939 Meri attends schools in Berlin and Paris, where his father holds various diplomatic posts.

1941 Soviet forces deport the Meri family, including young Lennart, to Siberia.

1946 The Meris are allowed to return to Estonia from Siberia. Over the years, Meri’s father becomes a translator and leading Estonian expert on Shakepeare.

1948-1953 Lennart Meri attends Tartu University, studying history. By now, Meri speaks five languages other than Estonian—French, German, English, Finnish and Russian.

1960s Meri makes a name for himself as a writer. His books recount his expeditions through Siberia, the Soviet Far East and the Arctic, and include philosophical observations about life and the state of the universe.

1970s Meri also becomes well-known for his documentary films on Finno-Ugric tribes—cousins to the Estonians—around the Soviet Union. Unlike many other Estonians, Meri is granted permission to travel to the West on a more regular basis.

Late 1980s Meri becomes increasingly active in the movement for Estonian independence. In 1989, he becomes a key figure in a budding ecological movement that challenges Moscow’s central control.

April 1990 A new, independence-minded government makes the surprise appointment of Lennart Meri as Foreign Minister. At the time, the Foreign Ministry amounts to one or two small offices and a secretary.

August 1991 A coup in the Kremlin. Meri predicts it will fail, saying the coup plotters don’t have the economic know-how to keep the USSR going. Said Meri: "I’ve never met a general yet who could milk a cow." The coup does fail, ushering in Estonian independence overnight.

April 1992 Meri becomes ambassador to Finland.

September 1992 Soviet-era leader Arnold Rüütel wins the most votes in a national poll, but fails to win enough for an outright victory. The presidential vote then goes to the Riigikogu parliament, which hands Meri a narrow victory in October.

September 1996 By a slim margin, Parliament rejects Meri for a second term. Some legislators criticize Meri for not communicating well enough with Parliament. The vote then goes to a specially-convened electoral council, which does vote Meri in for a second term.

"It’s always better to be too harsh than not harsh enough. I had a very harsh mathematics teacher, and so I fell deeply in love with mathematics."

"A small country like ours can only survive on condition that it is perfect. At least we need to strive to be perfect."

In this day and age, he is an unlikely national leader. Lennart Meri, Estonia’s first and only president after the restoration of independence in 1991, doesn’t have the air of one of the world’s new-age politicians—like a Bill Clinton or Tony Blair. The 69-year-old Estonian president, a writer and film director by profession, has more of the look and feel of a university professor. Like a professor, he has a reputation for a certain haphazardness and unpredictability. But those who meet him invariably describe him as eminently engaging—even fun-loving. Unlike his more polished, well-packaged counterparts in the West, he isn’t prone to trotting out neatly wrapped clichés. He is more likely to say something totally unexpected, or to suddenly hit his audience between the eyes with a quote from Shakespeare or Graham Greene. With little warning, he can treat his listeners to impromptu lectures on the history of Bismarckian Germany or maybe on the cultural particulars of some little-known mountain tribe in Central Asia.

The interview was conducted in English.

CITY PAPER: Everything changed so quickly from 1990 to 1992—for this country and for you. The USSR collapsed and you went from being a writer to being foreign minister to being president. You must have been walking around in a state of disbelief?
No, not really. I always felt that the collapse of the totalitarian state was just a matter of time. So I didn’t have that sense of disbelief that others might have had.

CITY PAPER: Is there anything that stands out in your mind about when you first became president in 1992? Was there a sense of excitement?
I can’t say if I remember feeling anything in particular. Yes, there was some feeling of excitement for about 15 minutes, after we heard the election results. Then it was time to get down to work.
       But there was something I remember that happened when I entered this presidential residence for the first time. I walked through the building, and in one wing of the building I found a room that was locked. And, you know, I have a bit of Tom Sawyer in my blood, so I badly wanted to know what was in that room. I asked an official accompanying me, "Why is this door locked and sealed?" He replied that the KGB had used it as a communications room. The door was even fixed with a KGB seal, the kind used in Soviet times. I said, "You open this door." The man said that no, he wasn’t authorized to do that. "Okay," I said to him, "then bring me an ax and I’ll break the door in myself!" He stared at me for just a second, then turned and promptly opened the door.

CITY PAPER: And what did you find inside?
Absolutely nothing. That was typical. The Soviets were always very good at building up illusions, about building up an aura of secrecy. Everything in the Soviet Union seemed so indestructible, as if it would all last for eternity. But it was always a matter of just looking behind the door, behind all the decorations. Behind the Soviet facade, what you usually found was nothing.

CITY PAPER: Someone said that in the early days of your presidency you always carried a screwdriver around this place, always fixing lights or maybe mending a door yourself. Is that true?
Yes. Actually, it was a Swiss pocket knife. They have about 25 different gadgets on them, you know. You could even build an airplane with a Swiss pocket knife, I suppose. I felt that everything had to be fixed as it would be in my own private house. It was the Soviet way that if you saw one light switch that didn’t work properly, you’d say, let’s plan to fix all the light switches in a month’s time and let’s form a committee to organize it. But no, it only takes five minutes and you should fix it yourself right now. So, this is why in the Soviet era, state-owned houses looked like they did. Private houses were always fixed up nicely. So, this was my philosophy when I came to this house, Estonia’s house. I saw it as my duty to fix things if they were broken, and not to put them off.

CITY PAPER: You mention Soviet attitudes. But how is it that some people who lived under Soviet rule adopted Soviet attitudes and others did not?
People are different, I suppose. The state of mind in my own family was that the existence of a totalitarian state was something very temporary. And in my family, everything that happened in the world was analyzed from one and only one point of view: Did it prolong the agony of this Soviet totalitarian system or did it shorten it. In this sense, you could say that, in our family, there was never an Iron Curtain.
       I even feel a little uncomfortable about this in a way, because on December 26,1979, I was very happy—for one particular reason: I understood that the war the Soviet Union was starting in Afghanistan was going to be a failure. This, I thought, could be something which was going to shorten our agony. The decision to start the war spoke volumes about decision-making in Moscow, and about an incoherency among the main Soviet powers—the party, the military and the intelligence services. I knew those regions, I had written a book about the area in Central Asia, and I could see the Soviets were headed for trouble.
       As for ridding ourselves of the Soviet legacy, we must start by teaching the teacher. That is something that has been postponed by us and something that must begin now. I think Finland has been a good model for us. You’ll recall that Finland had to pay war reparations to the Soviet Union. And Finland paid those reparations dutifully. But they had to work hard, and sometimes they couldn’t even afford lighting or heating fuel. But at the moment the state had some spare money, what did they do? They started sending thousands of students to be educated in the United States. Something similar to this, I firmly believe, is the key to the general renewal of Estonia.
       Remember that Estonia is very much tied to the rest of the globe today. We must understand that Estonia has specific interests in China, in Japan, in the United States, in Latin America and everywhere else. So in this sense, ridding ourselves of the Soviet legacy is not only a world of George Orwell—where we must destroy so much of what is inside our brains. You could say ridding ourselves of this legacy is much more the world of Christopher Columbus.

CITY PAPER: One of the things that stands out about your presidency is your meeting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1994 in Moscow. You were trying to negotiate the withdrawal of Russian troops from Estonia, which you ultimately managed to do. Some accounts say your negotiations with Yeltsin were very intense, so much so that shattered glass littered the floor around you. Is that correct?
It is more or less correct. It is true that, as our discussions began, the atmosphere was very frigid—below zero, you could say. Yeltsin spoke for a long time, and I sat there and listened. When it was my turn, I remember that I looked straight into his eyes and spoke and spoke and spoke—until, finally, I saw his first smile. I knew then the ice had been broken.

CITY PAPER: Are you in touch with Yeltsin at all any more?
We talk maybe twice a year at various conferences abroad. The last time was in Strasbourg, and we also had a good meeting in New York earlier. I was with my wife and the wife of the Finnish president, Mrs. Ahtisaari, was also with us. I noticed Yeltsin was surrounded by a crowd of journalists and politicians, and he seemed quite bored. So, I made my way through this crowd, grabbed him by the arm and said, "I’d like to introduce you to some beautiful women." And Yeltsin came over and stood with us, and I think he enjoyed it. We had a very friendly discussion.

CITY PAPER: Of the world leaders you’ve met, from the Queen of England to the Emperor of Japan, do any stand out as being particularly impressive?
That is a very difficult question to answer. But I am happy to say that I can give you an answer. I have to say it was a great honor to meet the Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, both when he was in Tallinn and later when I went to the Vatican myself. In a very broad, philosophical way, he feels like a man of our time. But it is not only something abstract about him. He has a very precise understanding of the problems facing the world today.

CITY PAPER: You were well known as an author before you entered politics. Are you writing a book now? Or are you keeping a diary for a possible memoir in the future?
I am one of those unfortunate characters who is unable to do different things simultaneously. So, no, I do not keep a diary. Some of my friends have asked me to keep notes, or write things down when something really important crosses my mind. Well, I have to say, the more I work here in this house, this presidential palace, the less I feel that anything is crossing my mind.

CITY PAPER: But you are said to have a very good memory, so maybe you don’t need to take notes.
They say a person is always able to describe his childhood in detail. That might be true. I’m not sure, however, that I could describe to you what I did last week.

CITY PAPER: Speaking of your childhood, you grew up in Europe before the Soviet takeover of Estonia. Your father was a diplomat, so you lived in Berlin, Paris and other cities as a child. This must have had a tremendous influence on you.
Of course. I have always thought that if you are four or five, there is already a ready-made character there. You cannot alter it much after that age. It is like making a bottle out of clay. Once you have it the way it is, you cannot change its shape. You can fill the bottle with different things, yes. But once this human bottle gets its shape in childhood, it doesn’t really change thereafter. That’s also how I think of myself, and about the impact of those pre-war years on me.
       As a child, I was forced to change my school nine times, and I had to switch languages four times. So, I was always forced to adapt myself. There was a terrible feeling of being alone, and that was difficult. But moving all the time—seeing the world, always having different experiences—was a good way to learn as a child. Maybe the best way.

CITY PAPER: In a nationally-broadcasted speech (February, 1998), on the occasion of the anniversary of Estonian independence, you were very sharp in your criticisms of society. In particular, you said officials who had become wealthy off of their positions were, to quote you, "scum". You said they were "scum on the state caldron" and that the electorate should vote them out of office as quickly as possible. You were criticized for being too harsh, especially since the occasion was supposed to be a rather joyous one. Do you think you were too harsh?
No! Absolutely not. It’s always better to be too harsh than not harsh enough. I had a very harsh mathematics teacher, and so I fell deeply in love with mathematics.

CITY PAPER: So referring to corrupt civil servants as scum won’t do any lasting damage to Estonia?
No, I don’t think so. You see, I have the opportunity maybe twice a year to present a message directly to the people. And having this opportunity only twice a year, I had to make a choice: I could speak out about my concerns right then or I could wait until later. My feeling is that if we have problems, we must act on those problems at once. We can’t wait until later.

CITY PAPER: What is the nature of the problem, if, in this case, we are talking about corruption. Are these problems a legacy of the Soviet era, are they problems related to Estonia’s smallness or are they simply problems that any normal country anywhere has to face?
First of all, thank God we live in a world where there are problems. It would be a terribly boring world if there were none.
       But look, Estonia must try to be exceptional. We can’t talk in these terms, speaking about how our levels of corruption are no worse than in other countries. No. A small country like ours can only survive on the condition that it is, well, perfect. At least we need to strive to be perfect, to be even better than the Germans, the Swedes, the Finns, the Americans. That should be our goal.