In northeastern Estonia, in the Ida-Viru maakond region, bordering Russia, tall chimneys and slag heaps dominate the horizon. This Baltic country, independent since 1991 and the fall of the Soviet Union, derives its energy independence from the extraction of oil shale, which enabled it to provide nearly 53% of its national electricity production in 2021.
This region, which the photographer Jérémie Jung explores, is the heart of the extraction. However, Estonia signed the European Union’s Green Deal on June 4, 2020, the starting point for the transformation of this highly polluting mining territory. It must, in fact, reduce its CO emissions2 in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. To do this, it plans to stop using oil shale in its energy mix by 2035.
The war in Ukraine, however, highlights one of the paradoxes of this approach. “The conflict in Ukraine and the energy crisis have caused record inflation in Estonia [25,4 % affichés en août 2022, contre 6,5 % en France dans la même période]. The question quickly arose in the media space as to whether stopping the exploitation of oil shale was a good strategy”, explains the photographer.
“Chance would have it that I arrived on the night of February 24, 2022 in Estonia for a third trip, confides Jérémie Jung. I was able to take this photo of the flag raising in the early morning hours after the invasion. The emotion was strong and the people present, serious. » The Ida-Viru maakond region is an important crossing point for the 5% of binational citizens (also holders of a Russian passport) who can cross the border without a visa. The population of Narva, the third largest city in Estonia, located on the border with Russia, is also 95% Russian-speaking, compared to 28.5% of the population nationwide. “Immediately, the government adopted strict measures: the next day, all Russian channels were cut, says the photographer. And it seems to have created resentment among some, particularly Russian-speaking elderly people, for whom television is essential for entertainment, especially in disaster-stricken villages such as Sompa, where nothing is happening. »
Caught up by current events, Jérémie Jung then became interested in the country’s Russian-speaking minority: “The conflict has highlighted the difficulty that ethnically Russian Estonians have and [les autres] Estonians to understand each other. »
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