Estonia’s city at the ‘end of the free world’ stares across a frozen border at Russia

This year, Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova came under online attack for running an exhibition titled Narva 44 dealing with the destruction of the border city during World War II by Soviet forces.

The Kremlin blames the devastation on retreating German troops, she said, but the photos showed a different story.

The exhibition annoyed Narva’s local council. Smorzhevskikh-Smirnova’s team also attracted criticism for placing a giant banner on the side of the fortress facing Russia proclaiming “Putin is a War Criminal” during Russia’s Victory Day celebrations in May.

Estonia is trying to keep relations with its ethnic Russians and with Moscow from boiling over. While Finland has closed all of its land border crossings with Russia, Estonia keeps a bridge in Narva open to foot traffic, which means there’s a constant focus on policing the flow of people.

Festering discontent is clear from those trying to cross.

At the entrance to the border checkpoint there’s a long queue snaking out into the town square as hundreds wait in the snow for passage into Russia. Travelers traversing the long, icy walkway over the bridge into Russia, many dragging big rolling suitcases, groan in Russian that the Estonian authorities have forced them to wait for hours due to cumbersome exit checks.

Belitšev blamed the Russians for creating traffic problems to make his team look bad and incite ill-feeling, but added it’s not his job to make transit to an “aggressor” state easy.

“If you want to enter Russia, it shouldn’t be comfortable,” he said.