Narva in Estonia is nestled on the EU and NATO's eastern border, and Russia's proximity is palpable in the town of 56,000 people, where 96 percent of the population are Russian speakers. The Narva crossing is now one of only three border checkpoints between the two countries, but car traffic has been suspended in both directions, leading to a drop in tourism revenue for Narva. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tensions have also arisen on both sides of the border.
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NewsTranscript
00:30Last year, in 2013, we learned that Russia was preparing a big concert, which was addressed
00:38not so much to the Russian audience, this whole concert was turned to us, and was offered
00:44to our people, residents of Narva, residents of Estonia.
00:47And, of course, we could not react silently to this.
00:52We are a fortress that stands right on the state border.
00:55This fortress has always stood in defense of the interests of the state it represents.
01:03And so we decided to hang the banner of Putin, a war criminal, on the day of the concert,
01:11before the concert, early in the morning, at sunrise.
01:26I think that the problem is that people who are Russian-speaking live in Estonia,
01:32specifically here in Narva, they do not know Estonian.
01:36Accordingly, the news is watched by Russian, Russian television.
01:40And from some reality, Russian, they are far away.
01:56The number of tourists in Narva, the capital of the Russian Federation,
02:02was quite high.
02:04I think that the Russian tourists were 23-25% of the total number of tourists.
02:13This can be seen from the payment cards.
02:16So it has decreased, and Narva has big problems with it.
02:20There is a lack of tourists at the moment.
02:25Narva, Estonia