Börsipäev 13. juuni - Russia, Beware:Estonia Chooses A National Fish - Investeerimine - Foorum

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Baltic Herring, Submerged
Under the Soviets, Wins;
Will People Eat It Now?
By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
June 13, 2007; Page A1

TALLINN, Estonia -- Since this seafaring Baltic nation achieved independence in 1991 from its far larger Russian neighbor, Estonia has tried to forge a post-Soviet national identity. That effort became more urgent recently in the face of renewed threats from Moscow, including riots in the capital here led by Kremlin supporters.

A key part of the strategy: Baltic herring.

Following an emotional debate, online poll, charges of voter fraud and parliamentary debate, Estonia, which is about half the size of Maine, several months ago officially selected the small, oily animal as its national fish.

"Food has a political dimension," explains Ruve Schank, an Estonian Agriculture Ministry official, who recalls how recipes, including their names, had to be approved by Moscow in Soviet times. "For me, the Baltic herring as our national fish is meaningful."

There are some problems with the selection. For starters, few Estonians actually eat it. The Baltic Sea is one of the most polluted in the world, reducing the herring catch in recent years. High amounts of dioxin are found in some Baltic herring, often above levels allowed by the European Union, which Estonia joined in 2004. The country's herring fleet is about a third its size a decade ago.

What's more, much of the 40,000 tons of herring caught last year was exported. Herring prices -- about $1.60 a pound in local stores -- are now largely determined by the international market, making the fish expensive for many Estonians.

Vjatseslav Savtenko, a 70-year-old retired locksmith fishing from the banks of a saltwater river near Tallinn early one morning, said he hadn't caught a Baltic herring in years.

He prefers porgy, he said, like the four-pounder he caught the previous evening and fried with onions for his dinner.

"For fishermen, the bigger the better," he said, with a blue, frayed cap pulled down low over his weathered face. Baltic herring are usually no more than eight inches long. That size makes them hard to prepare. They can also go bad within a day or two, he added, even when refrigerated.

More Worthy Choice

Some believe that pike would have been a more worthy choice. In fact, in the online poll to select a national fish, which attracted 50,000 voters, the pike won by about 500 votes, acknowledges Valdur Noormägi, the head of the group behind the idea, the Estonian National Fishery Association.

But a panel of judges that included him overruled the vote on the grounds that as a traditional staple of the Estonian diet, the Baltic herring has been more important for more people through the country's history. The pike's popularity lies mostly with weekend fishermen on the country's many rivers and lakes.

Mr. Noormägi says the panel's action was also justified by what he termed voter fraud, which occurred on the last day of voting in February when more than 150 votes for the pike came from a single computer. Also, other Web sites that allowed Estonians to vote for the national fish -- which boosted the voter turnout to more than 300,000 -- showed a vast majority for the Baltic herring, he says.

Baltic herring
"This was the correct choice," says Mr. Noormägi. "Scientists said the Baltic herring has been near our coast for 5,000 years."

The heralding of the herring is part of a larger government campaign -- called "fish makes good" -- to encourage Estonians to improve their diet by eating more fish. The government in recent weeks began running ads depicting a woman in a bikini emerging from the sea with a fish in her mouth, illustrating how fish can improve one's complexion.

The government also wants to promote Estonian cuisine. It first had to identify it.

Over the years, the largely agrarian population of 1.4 million has been partial to pork, sauerkraut, blood sausage and fried potatoes, fare heavily influenced by nearby Germany and Russia.

During the Soviet period, Estonian recipes were suppressed as nationalist by the Soviets. A Moscow-sanctioned Estonian cookbook from 1955 has just 18 pages of Estonian recipes relegated to the back of the 416-page publication. It features instead long political tracts describing how in "capitalist countries the production of consumer goods diminishes with each passing year."

Out of Favor

As a result, many Estonian dishes -- such as a popular holiday recipe of beets, potato salad and Baltic herring called rosolje -- fell out of favor during the Cold War, preserved primarily by the Estonian diaspora. After independence in 1991, Estonians were eager for foreign goods, such as German yogurt and American ice cream.

"Our food was virtually lost," says Karin Annus Kärner, who heads an Estonian school in New York and recently wrote an Estonian cookbook. In Brooklyn, N.Y., Toomas Sorra, a gastroenterologist and Estonian-American who has visited Estonia frequently in recent years, says the only Baltic herring he has experienced was as a gift at a dinner at the Estonian Consulate in New York. He offers that his relatives in Estonia like to catch eel.

Now, the government is eager to develop its own cuisine, led by the herring. The matter recently found its way to the Estonian Parliament, which debated whether to build some sort of statue for the chosen fish. Estonian personalities have weighed in.

Dimitri Demjanov, a prominent Estonian chef and founder of a culinary institute in Tallinn, has appeared numerous times on TV to talk about the distinctiveness of the fish. Herring eaten in other countries like Finland, Sweden and Holland is bigger and "more rubbery" than the Estonian version, he says. "We have this fish that no one else has," he says. "Ours is smaller and more gentle."

Mr. Demjanov says having symbols like a national fish is particularly important for a country like Estonia, which has enjoyed independence only once before in its history, for 22 years before World War II. "It shows the world we are an independent country," he says.

The Baltic herring joins the blue cornflower and the barn swallow as Estonian national symbols, which were chosen during the Cold War as small expressions of nationhood in the face of Soviet hegemony.

The suddenly unfriendly relations with Russia make the initiative timely. Russia last month cut rail and road links to Estonia -- and may have been behind an unprecedented cyber-attack on the country -- after the Estonian government relocated a Soviet war memorial. Moving the controversial statue triggered a night of riots led by a pro-Kremlin youth group called Nashi (the word is Russian for "Ours"). The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the cyber-attack.

Others still assert there are better uses of the government's time and money. The total cost of the fish promotion, including advertising and brochures, was more than $600,000, some of which came from the EU.

"I like Estonian food but it's not worth spending money for this jokey thing," says Leopold Garder, who runs a shipping business in Tallinn. "We have a national flag, song and flower -- that is quite enough."

An angry editor of a local newspaper quipped in an editorial that the national fish is the former agriculture minister who came up with the campaign.

Börsipäev 13. juuni - Russia, Beware:Estonia Chooses A National Fish

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