Memories from Estonia
1. "I was just 7 and I do remember that day, although it did not really touch me at that time. It's kind of like how I think most Estonians remember where we were when we heard of the sinking of MS Estonia (second deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history).
It was a sunny day sometime around 4 pm, I was eating Domino cookies (like Oreos, but Finnish) while walking to my mother's work from school, in front of the then-Hansapank building in Haapsalu, and somebody mentioned a plane hitting a building in USA. I didn't think much of it at that moment."
- Q. P.
It was a sunny day sometime around 4 pm, I was eating Domino cookies (like Oreos, but Finnish) while walking to my mother's work from school, in front of the then-Hansapank building in Haapsalu, and somebody mentioned a plane hitting a building in USA. I didn't think much of it at that moment."
- Q. P.
2. "I was 7 and had just started school. It was my Name day and my uncle had called me in the morning to congratulate me. I don't think I've ever been wished a good Name Day before or since.
When I came home with mom, father was already at home, which was unusual (he would normally come home a few hours later). He told me that there had been a terrorist attack in New York and they'd all gone home.
We spent the evening watching news, the replays of the plane hitting the buildings and the buildings collapsing. It was on loop permanently. I think that event was actually quite influential for our national TV to start becoming a little bit more modern in their presentations.
Regarding the 'Estonian 9/11', that would probably be the sinking of MS Estonia in 1994, but that I do not remember."
- S. D.
When I came home with mom, father was already at home, which was unusual (he would normally come home a few hours later). He told me that there had been a terrorist attack in New York and they'd all gone home.
We spent the evening watching news, the replays of the plane hitting the buildings and the buildings collapsing. It was on loop permanently. I think that event was actually quite influential for our national TV to start becoming a little bit more modern in their presentations.
Regarding the 'Estonian 9/11', that would probably be the sinking of MS Estonia in 1994, but that I do not remember."
- S. D.
3. "Was driving back to office with a colleague after a customer meeting, heard it on radio. The number of people present in the buildings.. did not immediately register with me, so I assumed there would be hundreds not thousands of deaths.
In the evening after reading the news, I concluded that yet another war would start in Afghanistan and I wrote a blog article about previous wars in Afghanistan. I knew that war would follow, but hoped it would not be a senseless one. I became interested in foreign policy and started observing what would happen. History later proved my hopes less than correct. Change was achieved, but with too much collateral damage and too much cutting of corners. Important principles were discarded along the way. As a result of learning about the aftermath, the image of the US changed in my eyes from an almost fully positive image to more of a 'loose cannon.' Instead of full support, I shifted towards having many reservations. I learned that good intent isn't enough.
In a way, Bin Laden achieved his objective indirectly: he provoked the US to make lots of mistakes, and a superpower's single mistake exceeded his full capacity to inflict harm by multiple times... and mistakes were many.
I still feel sad for the people who lost their lives, both in the US and Afghanistan, and by some logic in Iraq, and subsequently in Syria... because it all snowballed. Afghanistan became both a reason and a hurdle against success in Iraq. Iraq became a reason for ISIS/Daesh to exist and conquer much of Syria.
In retrospect, I strongly feel that the response should have been handled very differently. Hindsight is much better informed than foresight, of course, but... it was a geopolitical turning point for the worse."
- P. P.
In the evening after reading the news, I concluded that yet another war would start in Afghanistan and I wrote a blog article about previous wars in Afghanistan. I knew that war would follow, but hoped it would not be a senseless one. I became interested in foreign policy and started observing what would happen. History later proved my hopes less than correct. Change was achieved, but with too much collateral damage and too much cutting of corners. Important principles were discarded along the way. As a result of learning about the aftermath, the image of the US changed in my eyes from an almost fully positive image to more of a 'loose cannon.' Instead of full support, I shifted towards having many reservations. I learned that good intent isn't enough.
In a way, Bin Laden achieved his objective indirectly: he provoked the US to make lots of mistakes, and a superpower's single mistake exceeded his full capacity to inflict harm by multiple times... and mistakes were many.
I still feel sad for the people who lost their lives, both in the US and Afghanistan, and by some logic in Iraq, and subsequently in Syria... because it all snowballed. Afghanistan became both a reason and a hurdle against success in Iraq. Iraq became a reason for ISIS/Daesh to exist and conquer much of Syria.
In retrospect, I strongly feel that the response should have been handled very differently. Hindsight is much better informed than foresight, of course, but... it was a geopolitical turning point for the worse."
- P. P.
4. "4th grade, I was at school and only one of my classmates had a cellphone. His father had called him and had told the story. I remember asking whether the Empire State Building was still intact because it was the only building I knew in NYC, I had never heard of the WTC towers. I skipped my last class, took the bus home, ran towards home and turned on the TV. I had no remote and I did it by hand and the TV was on a high shelf, so I barely reached it. I remember my first sight of the flaming towers and of their collapse. I remained ogling the TV, both mesmerized and frightened."
- K. L.
- K. L.
5. "I was 6 y/o at the time and was sitting by the table in the living room drawing. Mom came into the room to watch the 9 o'clock news and the attack on the WTC was the main topic of the day. We both were watching it, but for some reason it didn't click that this was a real thing. I thought that this was from some kind of action movie. It took a few years before I understood that this was something that actually happened."
- H. M.
- H. M.
6. "I was at grandma's when the news hit TV. The family kind of just looked on in silence, confused at what the world has come to. The news was always droning on about bombings and killings due to the Second Chechen War, ETA in Spain, IRA in Ireland, Yugoslavian, Palestine, individual 'Bomb men of Pae street', etc. So to this backdrop, ramming the towers was definitely more spectacular than say, derailing a high speed train or rigging a gas explosion, but at least I hardly felt any extra emotion, this was just humanity's sad everyday and somewhat in the category of 'crazy stuff foreigners do.'"
- A. R.
- A. R.
7. "Was 7 years old, watching MacGyver on Kanal 2 which was cancelled abruptly due to urgent news.
Still remember the clips of people jumping down."
- M. L.
Still remember the clips of people jumping down."
- M. L.