Welcome

News from Estonia: http://www.baltictimes.com/news_estonia/ , http://news.err.ee/

Welcome to the website for Estonians living abroad! 

With this website we wish to spread interesting information to and about Estonians living abroad.

Besides practical information, the site contains a forum for debates, places for advertisments for jobs or items connected with Estonia and links to useful information about Estonian events all over the world.

If you see anything that needs to be corrected or added to the site or wish to send some other message, please contact the webmaster.

The site is cared for and moderated by the EWC (Estonian World Council, Inc.) representative in Estonia, Aho Rebas,
email aho.rebas@hm.ee .

 

Estonians abroad

The Estonians living abroad form many different groups, depending on when and why they left Estonia and where they went. On the website we usually call all of them Estonians abroad, regardless of their differences.

 

How many Estonians live abroad?

An estimated 150-200 000 Estonians live abroad. It is difficult to give an exact number as most countries do not register the ethnical origin of their inhabitants and as many of the descendants of the refugees and emigrees have assimilated into the societies of their new homelands. Nor does the European Union register people's migration within its borders.

The foreign countries with more than 20 000 Estonians are Finland, Sweden, Russia, USA and Canada.

Large groups of Estonian farmers and workers went abroad - mainly to the Russian empire and the United States - before the birth of the Republic of Estonia 1918.
 

The second big wave of people leaving Estonia occured during the Second World War 1939-45, when about 100 000 Estonians were arrested, deported and recruited by the occupying forces of Germany and the Soviet Union and during that period about 80 000 Estonians escaped to the west.
 

The third big wave of emigrees has left Estonia since the republic regained its independence 1991, when thousands of Estonians have left Estonia to work or study mostly in the European Union. The majority of them are expected to return.