At least one subject to be teached in Estonian among country's Russian-speaking minority

A surprise awaits high school students in this Russian-speaking city in Estonia: Estonian literature is now being taught in Estonian.

Photo: At least one subject to be teached in Estonian among country's Russian-speaking minority

The switch from Russian may seem like a small and logical move - after all this is Estonia - but the students were skeptical.

"I'm not sure it's right," said Vladimir Smirnov, 17, at the Pahklimae school in Narva, a city on the Russian border. "In my opinion, the government should make our country multinational."

For the first time, high schools catering to the Baltic nation's Russian-speakers - about one-third of the 1.3 million residents - are required this year to teach at least one subject in Estonian.

It is the first step of the government's plan to boost Estonian-language instruction among the country's Russian-speaking minority, most of whom moved here during five decades of Soviet occupation.

Education officials claim the program will help integrate the Russian minority. But it has unnerved ethnic Russians, who are increasingly wary of what they consider a campaign to rob them of their cultural identity.

The reform enters into force at a time of heightened ethnic tension in Estonia. In April, the Baltic country was rocked by the worst violence since the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union when ethnic Russians rioted in the capital, Tallinn, over the dismantling of a Red Army monument.

Government officials stress that the reform will better prepare Estonia's Russians for upper education and eventually to take up jobs in both the commercial and public sector, where command of Estonian is obligatory.

"We think it is important that classes are taught in Estonian to ensure (Russian-speaking) students acquire good communications skills, a large vocabulary and an ability to conduct casual conversations," said Irene Kaosaar, an Education Ministry official.

Mastery of Estonian is also a key requirement for citizenship, which has left at least 100,000 people - mostly Russian-speakers - with a stateless status. Human rights groups have criticized Estonia's language laws, saying they have further alienated Russian-speakers, instead of integrating them.

Kaosaar said gradually increasing the language requirements would help Estonia avoid the mass protests that erupted in Baltic neighbor Latvia when it carried out a similar reform at a quicker pace in 2004.

The Estonian language reform will add new Estonian subjects in Russian high schools every year until 2011, when 60 percent of all classes in grades 10-12 must be taught in Estonian, a Finno-Ugric tongue utterly unlike Russian.

The Pahklimae school in Narva was decked in flowers and balloons for the traditional start of school on Monday. Students were neatly dressed; boys in suits and girls in skirts and blouses.

In a brief speech to the students, the Russian consul-general in Narva, Nikolai Bondarenko, made clear Moscow is not pleased about the language reform.

"Though it's important that students learn Estonian, it's very important that they do not forget to learn Russian, their original mother-tongue," Bondarenko said.