It’s amazing what a stretch of water can do. The Baltic Sea separates Estonia from Sweden and Finland. The struggles of the last couple of generations couldn’t be more different on these opposite shores. When I visited the Baltic states back in the 1980s, labor was cheaper than light bulbs. While I was touring museums, an old babushka would actually walk through the museum with me, turning the lights on and off as we went from room to room.
Those days are long gone. Estonia’s busy capital, Tallinn, is like a petri dish of capitalism. Since winning its freedom in 1991, the country has blossomed. My guide, Mati, brags that Estonia has the strongest economy, most freedom, and highest standard of living of any republic that was part of the USSR. He says that by some measures, Estonians are now one of the freest people on Earth.
