5th NORDIC-BALTIC CONFERENCE IN REGIONAL SCIENCE
GLOBAL-LOCAL INTERPLAY IN THE BALTIC SEA REGION
Pärnu, Estonia, October 1-4, 1998

This paper deals with social risks in the transboundary contexts. Transboundary risks are usually connected with environmental issues, because the area of primary concern in such cases is transboundary effects of industrial accidents and transmission of pollutants. However our study conducted in the Estonian - Russian border zone shows the following picture of priority of risks perceived by the local population in the transboundary area (these data extracted from sociological research taken place in Narva in August 1996.

Thus we can see that social and economical risks are more important for the inhabitants of border areas of ex-USSR new-appeared boarders. First factor may be seen as connected with environmental risk, because the pollution may cause on state of health and health perceptions. But from the explanations of respondents we concluded that people are afraid of the loss of the ability to work because of health deterioration and the very high price of the pharmacy, so it is more social and economical aspect then environment caused.

The disintegration of the USSR that was the one of the most important geo-political events of the beginning of the 90s, changed in different ways life of people in the ex-Soviet states. The population of Siberia and other central Russian regions were much less affected by this process to compare to the people living in current new border areas. People who live in border areas were affected by the establishment of strict border regimes which stopped economic contacts and created many divided families.

The feeling of stability and protectiveness which was the case for the time of the Soviet Union, have disappeared.

Suddenly people found themself in quite new living environment, some of them suddenly turned into being "foreigners" although they were born and never moved from their living places. It was a reason of the appearance of new risks which were unfamiliar to the Soviet people, and one of the risks were the risk of changing of the regional identity.

Unlike ethnic identity, regional identity concerns any regional community which has a definite border (understood here mainly geographically, economically and politically), and boundaries (understood mainly in terms of mentality, culture and value orientation), the established interrelations with neighbour communities and regional authorities. The dwellers of a region may have different ethnic identities depending on ethnic roots but they have a shared territory and a common feeling of it.

The regional identity is very strong usually, and for big ethnic groups, e.g. Russians, the identity of being "co-landers" is much stronger than ethnic identity.

The regional identity is formed in the given environment, so there is a risk to damage this identity when the environment is changed. Thus the risk for inhabitants is to find themselves in the new social environment without physically changing it. This kind of social risk is an important characteristic of transboundary zones, because in these regions the probability of these changes is the highest one.

The changes in the regional identity result in shifts of the interpersonal contacts, family relations, appearance of new actors in the social environment.

In 1996 two sociological researches took places in the transboundary region between Russia and Estonia, in the North and South of Lake Peipsi. The border there is rather new. It was established after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Early the frontiers have never been here, neither when Estonia was included in Russian Impair nor when it was independent. The border of the 1920 was drawn in accord with the Tartu Treaty and remained until 1940 when Estonia has been included into the USSR. It was the rather short period when the border between Estonia and Russia existed in that area, but it went then more to East of the current borderline.

Modern line of the border was created in 1945, when a part of Estonian lands were transmitted to Pskov and Leningrad oblast. But in Soviet times the borders between republics of USSR were not strict, there was no exact description of their places, therefore the boundaries were transparent the inhabitants of such "transboundary" regions did not note them.

When Estonia became independent the new borderline repeats the borders of the Estonian Soviet Republic. Thus on the north it goes on the natural demarcation river Narova, in the south it was drawn only recently in the attempts to not damage households and private vegetable gardens.

Hence, we have two case studies - the north and south Estonian-Russian border. Practically they are very different, but both are the clear examples of types of the regional identity and the transboundary risk perception.

Narva - Ivangorod case study.
In the north the state border divided two towns Narva and Ivangorod that were previously practically one town with common infrastructure. The population of Narva was formed in the years of the industrialisation of Estonia after the WWII. The workers and engineering staff were brought here from all the Soviet Union, these were mostly students graduated from the institution and colleges sent by the Young Communists Union. Another group of people was former prisoners for whom it was forbidden to live in the zone of 100 kilometres from the big cities like Moscow, Leningrad and Tallinn. So they were sent to Narva, Ivangorod and other cities of North-West Estonia. The biggest part of native Estonian population of Narva has been deported to Siberia and has never returned in the town. Thus now the picture of the ethnic composition that we can observe was formed - only 4% of Narva population are Estonians, the rest of the population is so-called "Russian-speakers".

The major part of population of Narva is recent migrants and their offspring. They are the people that were cut from their roots and have not preserved their national culture. The migrants of the Soviet times were the marginal elements possessing more "soviet" identity rather than national. Appeared in such an area of migrants as Narva they were not able to re-establish the multicultural society because their links with their national culture were very weak. The dominant culture in the social environment in Narva became neither Estonian nor Russian but Soviet. To speak more correctly it was not a culture, it was a mentality.

This Soviet mentality and consequently the "Soviet" identity fulfilled the cultural vacuum of the town. In spite of years passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is still easy to find the traces of the Soviet legacy in the style of management of local authorities, in the mind of local people, in the architecture, and so on.

Establishment of the border (between Estonia and Russia) started to destroy the "Soviet" identity of Narva inhabitants because they now became inhabitants of Estonia, the other country than they lived before. The "Soviet" identity used to be based on the feeling of huge territories and the freedom to migrate within it, the state interests was above national and regional ones. The official propaganda was trying to form the "soviet man", a mass of the citizens of the USSR without any national differences. This Soviet mentality is foreign to people living in the communities that surround the Narva region. The Estonians have a very strong ethnic identity that have not been lost during the Soviet time and has been restored during the last few years, the rural population of regions of Russia also does not share the attitudes of the migrants.

So the zone of the "Soviet" identity received the strict boundaries, between Russian Russia and Estonian Estonia and "Soviet" identity in this region became the regional identity for this place.

After the dramatic changes of the last years the risk of the loss of the social stability has appeared. The local dwellers used to live with the feelings of social protectiveness and stability that was developed by soviet propaganda which has been completely lost by now. Among the factors of risk often mentioned by respondents were the awareness of war (without exact concretisation), of possible deportation of people to Russia. Some of them told that they are afraid of the future.

The population of this region feels quite strong the north boundary of their regions. The follow questions from our survey shows that more than half of respondents see it very clear.

The most interest of this question is that the quart of respondents does not except the border. In spite of this question was not direct, they said that they do not want the borders. It is the bright reflection of the soviet mentality.

That environment in the cities is also is created by the indefinite situation with citizenship. There is no any official statistic about this question, but about 50% of population of Narva are the citizens of Russia, 25% have the so-called passport of foreigner, and only the rest are the citizens of Estonia. So, they can not be a part of Estonia either culturally or institutially.

They have the boundaries that separate them from surrounding Russians and Estonians. Risk of appearance of these boundaries is connected this phenomena of "moving borders".

Conclusion: risk of changes in the transboundary zone damaged the feeling of stability and protectiveness. The perception of borders and boundaries play the key role in both social identification process and social construction of risk.

The second case study: Setumaa.
The another case was studied to the South of the lake Peipsi. It is a motherland of a small ethnic group Setu. Setus belong to the Finno-Ugric language family as well as Estonians, but they are orthodox. Setu population is divided by the current Russian - Estonian border. There are two regions where Russian Setus live. One of them is quit separate, and there Setu are practically russifisized and dispersed among the Russians. The second region is very closed to Estonian part of Setumaa (land of Setus), and formerly before the appearance of the border was infrastucturally a part of Estonia.

The compact living, original culture permitted Setu to hold strong identity. It might be defined as regional identity, they have two levels of identity: they consider themselves Estonian (higher level), but Setu (lower level). Setus in Russia live in Russian surrounding, so they identify themselves stronger then Setus in Estonia living in the Estonian environment that is culturally closer to Setu.

Formerly social ties of Russian Setus were oriented to Estonia. It could be explained in some ways: