The goal of the project was to investigate the effect of person-to-person connections and cross-border communication in times of geopolitical tensions. The case study at the heart of the research was the relationship between Estonians and Finns during the late 1980s and early 1990s, when these linguistically and culturally similar nations were separated by the Iron Curtain. Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union and because of the precarious nature of the Soviet economy, there was a deficit of food and other necessities. Neighboring Finns were not a part of the Soviet Union and their economy was thriving. Many Finns decided to take matters into their own hands and start personally delivering aid to Estonians.
Over the years large amounts of food, clothes, toys, medicine, technology and other items were delivered from Finland to Soviet Estonia by vast informal person-to-person networks. This spontaneous humanitarian aid helped families in Estonia not only to survive, but also thrive in the precarious economic environment of late-socialism. Moreover, some of these ventures grew into more formal connections as well as business collaborations later on, after Estonia had re-established its independence in 1991.
Thus, the cross-border communication brought with it not just material goods, but also immaterial benefits, such as entrepreneurial and political ideas. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the newly reinstated budding Republic of Estonia quickly found its way towards a path of reconstruction and democracy, and has enjoyed outstanding socio-economic success among its peers ever since. Compared to other former Soviet states, Estonia ranks highly in many areas, such as economic freedom, low corruption, scientific impact and education.
These developments can seem surprising, but once the effect of years worth of Finnish aid, grass-root level international relations and diplomacy of the people are accounted for, a new aspect of reality opens up: one, that can be utilized not just as a fascinating retrospective, but that might also potentially be sourced for recipes in global development work to combat inequality, poverty and corruption on a larger scale.
