Debelak: Freedom arrived in Estonia, but the awakening must continue

From shortages to a free market

Estonian outlet ERR News has published a personal essay by Rohke Debelak looking back roughly 35 years to the period when Estonia moved from the Soviet planned economy toward a free market. The piece recalls how goods such as bananas were once so scarce that a banana was more myth than fruit, and how queues would form before people even knew what was being sold.

Following the restoration of independence, Estonians quickly became consumers, according to the essay: makeshift "hamburger" stands appeared, foreign plastic shopping bags became status symbols, and shops filled with items such as chewing gum and Coca-Cola that people often could not afford despite their new availability.

Debelak describes the arrival of expatriate Estonians bringing aid, advice and used goods, the rise of small cooperatives and street stalls selling everything from waffles to cigarettes without permits, and a widespread scrap-metal trade — including from the Russian army still stationed in Estonia at the time. One anecdote in the essay describes a childhood friend who bought air-to-air missiles from Russian soldiers and stored them in his garage until authorities confiscated them.

The essay also touches on the spread of video rental shops, satellite television, the introduction of the Estonian kroon, and the privatization process, during which people previously close to the old Soviet system often ended up best positioned to benefit. Many others, meanwhile, lost jobs and savings as the economy restructured, culminating in the country's first stock market crash.

Debelak concludes that freedom brought not only the right to choose but also responsibility for those choices, drawing a parallel with Ukrainian youth currently fighting for their own freedom, and arguing that the "age of awakening" is not a single historical moment but an ongoing obligation.