The Movie 300 in Fifteen Minutes: http://community.livejournal.com/m15m/14864.html

I liked it so much I changed my avatar... just for a while

Can I get a big "For Sparta!" on 3?

1... 2... 3!

For Sparta!

300 was a pretty good movie, too, BTW.

Koopa!

I, too, have changed my avatar.

I have not changed my avatar, because I'm too busy dining in hell.

We can't stop here! This is Sparta!

{"name":"0685.png","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/4\/144db3e974c94f49587fa665a93fe05e.png","w":550,"h":608,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/1\/4\/144db3e974c94f49587fa665a93fe05e"}

So, the full movie is basically some dude shouting Sparta time and again? Geez, Hollywood is improving its scripts

Naw, you gotta read the review, it's quite accurate

Yeah, I've heard great things... Haven't seen it yet though.

{"name":"sata.jpg","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/5\/d5cfe734cbc4431c38c5b9b9b1e8b5e3.jpg","w":482,"h":714,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/d\/5\/d5cfe734cbc4431c38c5b9b9b1e8b5e3"}

Damn, I hope I didn't wake anyone up when I laughed at the SATA picture

gnolam: hehe, nice

gnolam, wtf is in the background of that picture? Looks like one of the original 3 ton disk drives from the 50's.... Iirc, it was 3Mb = 3 tons, 1 Meg per ton. Yep, we've come along way.

meh, here's a real spartan:
http://www.allegro.cc/files/attachment/591999

http://photos-306.ak.facebook.com/ip002/v63/138/82/500811024/n500811024_31306_8241.jpg

http://www.duckiehorde.net/eek.jpg

I can not type , I am too much laughting with these pict ;-)

Ahahah!!!

In somewhat related news, there are around 1000 Russians rioting and looting in Tallinn since we wanted to transport one of WW2 monuments and some remains buried under it to military cemetery.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=bronze+soldier&btnG=Search+News

A 115MiB video of the situation, filmed by a random person who was in the middle of it:
http://album.hv.ee/pronksodur/pronksodur1.wmv
Not all of the worst things are there. E.g you can't see them truning over cars and putting stores on fire.

What was left of a small koisk:
{"name":"IMG_5151.JPG","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/d\/adf995c53fad9ca400ea9d5d571281c5.jpg","w":576,"h":864,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/a\/d\/adf995c53fad9ca400ea9d5d571281c5"}
There are some cars turned over and so far 11 policemen have been injured, ~100 people are arrested. So far I don't know how many rioters have been injured.
I sure hope when I wake up in the morning there won't be a warzone out here

[edit]

What a coincidence. That image was not made by me
http://temp.matude.com/300.jpg

[edit2]
Text is in Estonian but images should be self explanatory:
http://www.ap3.ee/Default.aspx?link=http://www.ap3.ee/Default2.aspx?ArticleID=cee655bf-1a75-4977-acb3-3b382899acf4

[edit3]
Some more photos:
http://www.postimees.ee/270407/esileht/siseuudised/257479_foto1.php#33

Good news is that it seems as things are starting to cool down a bit. Police has succeeded in frightening away a few hundred rioters. All that was needed was to take their batons out, line up and walk towards them. Though it is no wonder, vast majority of the rioters were teenagers who most likely were just "having fun".

[edit4]
Nice one, our city council has disallowed any alcohol to be sold before May 2th. Hopefully that keeps awauy further rioting
From the little information I have at the moment there have been big damages to several cars and shops. I don't know about how many have been injured.

[edit5]
Lots more images here, made by the same guy who made the video.

[edit6]
When you are trying to "defend" some monument what do you do? You raid wool shop, of cource
{"name":"IMG_7902.JPG","src":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/4\/b43e0ba7bea030bb5fa07def70d4439f.jpg","w":800,"h":600,"tn":"\/\/djungxnpq2nug.cloudfront.net\/image\/cache\/b\/4\/b43e0ba7bea030bb5fa07def70d4439f"}It is all for the greater good, honest!

Why are they upset about it, HoHo?

[edit]
pressed "add reply" too soon, wait for full story in some later post
[/edit]

Why are you asking HoHo? That was entirely pointless (except to convey some sort of twisted idea that I dare not try to understand).

** edit
On second thought, its really hard to figure out people's tones on the internet.

Long story short, there are lots of teenagers who don't know history and have nothing better to do. Some brainwashing from Russian television also probably helped quite a bit.

Now the long version.

It is a long story that began before WW2.
Before WW2 Estonia was a republic. When Germany started the war it also occupied Estonia. Some time later Russians started fighting them back and "freed" us from the Nazis and just to be sure they joined our country with USSR for 50 years.

In the honour of around 13 ssoldersthat died when freeing our capitol that monument was raised. Too bad few people know that most of those soldiers were just pillaging Tallinn and some of them were killed because they were trying to rob locals.

For most Estonians that statue is viewed as a symbol of the 50 year occupation by USSR.

Some old time USSR war veterans gather there, drink vodka and celebrate the "freeing" of Tallinn. They also praise the old times when Estonia was still a communistic country in part of USSR, they wave the old flag that was used back then and in some rare cases burn our current flags. This flag burning happens rather infrequently, perhaps 2-3x during the last few years.

For some Russian youngsters who have nothing better to do with their time it is a gathering place where they do just about the same things as those war veterans only they have almost no idea what was going on during WW2 or while we were still occupied by USSR. They are there just because of the action or perhaps because it is cool to be there.

That monument is also used as a propaganda weapon by Russia. Someone even said that they might perform a military operation to bring those bodies back to Russia. Well, they can have them if they ask but it is much more "fun" to threaten with war, isn't it Luckily they will most likely just hope to show Estonia in bad light to other countries and won't do anything else but some economic sanctions.

Our new government decided that as this monument has made things a bit complicated they would dig up the graves and relocate them to proper military cemetery outside of town. That way it won't be used as a gathering place for extremists.

Just in case most of entire Estonian policemen were brought to Tallinn to surround the site while the work was being done. It was rather quiet from early morning of 26'th to around noon. From noon to around 18 there were a couple hundred people there "protecting" the statue. Protecting meant lots of teenagers scandaling "shame" and "Russia" to the policemen

After 18 lots of people got off work and schools and joined them. It was suggested that a total of around 1000 rioters were there. They started to turn cars upside down, trashed at least one kiosk and several shops. They also threw rocks and other stuff at the policemen.

Some hours ago it was reported that 11 policemen were injured. So far I don't know how many protesters were injured but I doubt it was many. Only force that was used to hold them back where some kind of flashbangs that, well, flashed and made a bang

There were a couple of fights with police but I think it wasn't anything major, probably I know more about that in the morning. Currently over a hundred rioters should be arrested.

Some smaller groups of rioters are still walking the city but I think nothing big is going on anywhere right now.

Only problem is that the work may take more than two weeks to finish. In that time there will be two weekends and a national holiday. That means lots of people with nothing to do. I sure hope nothing too bad happens in the next few days/weeks :-\

[edit]
A shorter version of the previously posted video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jX80pwVKfk

[edit2]
A few typos were fixed and some things clarified.

...

I also clarified the longer post a bit, there might have been some misunderstanding there.

There have been rumours that some Estonian teenagers want to gather into groups and do some kind of punishment operation or something. I hope nothing like that happens or it would be really simple to show us in bad light. All it takes is one fight between large group of Estonians and a few Russians to "prove" how Russian minorities are being "discriminated" in our country. I've seen one video from some Russian news reporters* and all they showed there were lots of poliecemen and some rioters being dragged away, nothing about looting

*) http://video.rfn.ru/vesti_24
Awful quality, in Russian and the real story starts a few minutes later.

So far I know that three Estonians have been arrested while they were walking around with our national flag. They weren't doing anything bad but I think it was the correct decision, they would have been an excellent target for the rioters.

[edit]

Got to love 21'st century
http://carl.pri.ee/pronksmees/Kanal2_reporter.mpg <- some local special news report ripped from TV. Good quality, in Estonian, 15min in lenght. Some video footage from the vandalizing.

In Soviet Russia, wool shop raid you!

More videos, I haven't looked them myself yet:
http://album.hv.ee/pronksodur/pronksodur2.wmv
http://album.hv.ee/pronksodur/pronksodur3.wmv

[edit]
The windows of Turkish embassy building were crashed.

With every bit of news I get I see that removing the statue is the only right thing to do. This is only an excuse to do all sorts of bad things. Too bad it wasn't done sooner, though. Right time would have been together with all those other USSR statues that were removed when we got our freedom back in 1991.

[edit2]
A bunch of links to some amateur videos:
http://www.epl.ee/artikkel/383638

[edit3]
I'm looking at the long news storie I linked before. They also have raided some lingeree shop.

[edit4]
Some are screaming "vsjo našem" or in English, "all is ours". Reporters are walking down the street, all the windows on both side are trashed.

[edit5]
In the end of the report there is some Russian shop owner who is trying to civilize the rioters. He uses only words but that is enough to make some teenagers to return the loot. An angry Russian can be a pretty scary site

[edit6]
Latest news say that rioters have been mostly either arrested or have gone away. Poliece ran out of vehicles and ordered a big bus to transport some of them away. Also all of the city holding cells are full and I have no ideas where those newly arrested ones are taken.

Here is a photograph of some of the people involved:
http://forum.planet.ee/attachment.php?attachmentid=52888&d=1177634751
Under the picture it sais
Unknown liberator*: "hey, what the hell are we doing her- ooh, Sprite!"

*) remember to whom that statue was dedicated.

Here are a bunch of more photos of the chaos:
http://www.w3.ee/openarticle.php?id=521926&lang=est
http://www.w3.ee/openarticle.php?id=521924&lang=est

[edit7]
Seems as nothing interesting is going on. It is almost 5 a.m and I have to go to work in a few hours
Off to sleep! I hope I can wake up still living in free country.

Can't we all just get along?

Some early statistics:

• 1 rioter stabbed to death by another rioter (both Russian), the killer has been arrested

• 57 people got hurt, 44 rioters and 13 policemen. At least three people were hospitalized.

• Over three hundred people were arrested, more will be after reviewing the tapes of the hundreds of security cameras that recorded most of the things.

</li>

I'm off to work now probably have a bit better information in a few hours.

[edit2]
Nothing too interesting is going on so far, things seem to be quiet. Though some Russian politics have said all sorts of things:

We all know that Russia has already used its energy to blackmail and threaten other countries. Just try to remember what happened Ukraine some time ago.

That Dmitri Rogozin guy has also said that what happened here last ningt should be good enough of a reason for starting a war. His words were something like "first economical sanctions then ending all diplomatic relations and finally war". Of cource he is not the one who makes such decisions, most likely he just sais that to gather votes. Also I doubt (hope) Russia won't do anything that bad. After all, Estonia is a member of NATO.

[edit2]
Some more news from that site, basically a short summary of what happened: http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=7216
There they say that the stabber is not known. I'm not sure yet what sources to believe, either one can be wrong.

[edit3]
This even got to the front page of BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6598269.stm

[edit4]
Another image gallery that will probably have lots of updates in the next few hours/days: http://www.postimees.ee/galerii/index.php?picture=18754&cache=1&picoffset=0&galoffset=0&gallerydate=#pos
Just awful, young girs carrying their loot out from broken windows

This is just stupid... I really hope those teenagers will get some time to think about it in jail. I find it weird that only 1 person has died, though.

Some preliminary information about the killing said that the man was killed by one of the Russian shop owners who was trying to defend its property. I'm not 100% sure, though as no official information is currently known about that.

Why is that weird? Our police forces did not attack those people, they just tried to scare them away, unlike what OMON does in Russia. Though that is probably also the reason why so many shops were raided.

Most Estonians did not go there because there is a really good chance to get your ass kicked by the angry mobsters. There have been some reports of arrested Estonians, though. I'm not sure if they just got in the way of police or did they participate in the looting as well.

I didn't think about the police, I thought about 1000 angry russian mobsters in an Estonian city.

In that respect you are right, there were quite few casualties.

I think the situation is somewhat similar to Paris in 2005, though there it took almost nation wide scale and a lot more people were involved. Luckily only one human got killed. Then again this was only the first night and nobody knows what can happen during the coming few weeks.

Things are relatively quiet right now. There have been a couple of small incidents with few people involved but nothing too serious. There seems to be a massive FUD coming from Russia, though.
More coverage by BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6599145.stm
And google has gathered some here too: http://news.google.com/?ncl=1115493663&hl=en
Another interesting article, especially the last few paragraphs: http://www.eux.tv/article.aspx?articleId=7234

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2007/04/27/011.html
Some clarifications

So far I haven't heard any teargas was reported. Some rumours about it were on the move last night since a some smoke was seen but in fact that smoke was caused by a powder extinguisher that was used by police to hold back around 30 people who were trying to break through their lines.

Yes, they moved around with a water cannon car but it was never used.

There are some coverage of the situation by itar TASS: http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?GroupID=149
Make sure you have a truckload of salt to go with it

Special edition of a local newspaper with lots of pictures (PDF). Sorry, the text is in Estonian: http://www.speedyshare.com/731699529.html

Also two NATO fighters were doing their regular patrol over Estonia and seemed to stay here for a little bit longer. Perhaps that might cool some people down and remember them we are part of NATO and fighting us would mean fighting with almost the whole world.

Currently there are many rumours floating around. Some say that SMS'es were sent among the rioters and they were promised $8 per hour for causing all kinds of havoc. Some say that it was all organized by Russia, some say it was our own central party that lost on the last elections. It even sounds logical, they were objecting the relocation of the statue and now their leader is apologizing in front of Russian news reporters and is talking how this will likely cause the current government to fall apart. Just another vote gathering rally, it seems.

I've also heard there really were some Estonians who gathered together. Though there were only around hundred of them and they were just sitting and talking peacefully. I hope it won't get nasty.

Please note that I don't have nothing against Russians in general. I work with them and they are one of the best programmers I know. I also live in an area with above-average Russian density and it is considered one of the quietest parts of Tallinn. I bet if there would be a good enough reason for 1000 Estonians to gather and if you could find 10-20 good agitators they can also start similar riots, I think there is little difference between different nationalities.

What I do not like is how Russian government handels the whole situation. To me it seems as this country is falling back to what USSR used to be: a police state governed by single party where everyone who were thinking different got punished.

I wish luck to all the Russians who oppose Putins regime. I know what you feel, we had very similar situation here in Estonia lasting for half a century.

[edit]
It was just shown in the news how some teachers of Russian schools had rallied their 12-14 year old pupils to picket in front of our presidents castle. After one of the kids were put to police van they seemed to calm down.

[edit2]
There have been some reports of armored trucks moving around in the city. Russian news have reported that as claiming marital law. In reality they are just our soldiers returning from training camp

There are some new groups gathering on the streets, unfortunately now there are some Estonians too. So far I've heard that one bus station was vandalized but nothing too big, at least when comparing to what was going on last night.

[edit3]
News from wikinews. The talk section is also quite interesting, especially this part:

From what I remember from history lessons, this is true.

I just remembered why exactly all this fuss about the statue began almost a year ago.
Estonia declared a law that disallowed consuming alcohol in public areas. As I said before the statue was a gathering place for people who were celebrating the Victory Day there. They celebrated it by bringing flowers and drinking vodka.

Last year in 9'th May those people were there again drinking vodka. As it was disallowed some of the people got fined. That was seen as fascist action against Russian people and the conflict around the statue has grown ever since.

For some history lesson you can read this.

So thats whats going on over there. I've been listening to the news all day at work. They mentioned rioting and looting because of a statue in Estonia.

When I heard Estonia my interest became piqued. I thought to myself, at least one person from a.cc is from there.

Note:
I am listening to the news because some random computer in this lab @ work is playing it and I can't figure out which it is. Since I can't just turn them all off (it's actually very distracting) and going through all kvm's (theres about 30-40 machines running in here). I only mention this fact because I don't want people to assume I am a slacker.

My entire office is listening to their own radio or MP3 player. There's nothing wrong with that.

I've been offline for almost three hours and during that time it seems as things have got considerably worse.

• People are raiding shops in wider area.

• One church, bookstore and theatre building had their windows smashed

• Lots of alcohol shops have been raided

• Majority of the rioters seem to be teenagers, lots of them are girls. On the whole there are younger people on the streets today than there were yesterday

• Several flower shops have been raided with flowers being taken.

• There have been more fights, little information about injured people, at least one needed hospitalizing.

• Around 100 territorial defense army persons have been hired as helping poliecemen, arnound 100 can be mobilized if neccesary.

• There are reports of vandalism and looting in one other town with high russian density. Luckily the highest Russian density city that is on the border of Russia is still calm.

There are some good news also.

• It seems as most Estonians are at their homes thus streetfights shouldn't occur.

• Entire central city is locked out and city is divided into zones, no people are allowed to move between the zones without a good reason.

Police has also got its watercannon working and is using it when needed.
Riot police is acting and using flashbangs and rubber bullets. They are not exactly holding themselves back. People are being told to go home, who don't go and not fast enough to run away are arrested. Hundreds of more people have been arrested tonight and city buses are used to transport them

When lots of European countries have shown their support to our government German ex-chancellor condemns Estonia war memorial removal*. I wonder if it has anything to do with the gas/oil pipe they are building together with Russia ...

*) It is not removed, it is moved to another place somewhere away from central city.

I've never seen a guy so happy while getting hygienic bandages
http://forum.planet.ee/attachment.php?attachmentid=52892&d=1177669015
Rough translation of the image title: Liberator: "Hunger doesn't take a vacation"

[edit]
I was offline since I needed to visit my parents and help them build their farmhouse. I don't think I can keep you up to date much longer, it is already 1a.m here. Perhaps I can do soem quick overview tomorrow morning and later at night.

A rough translation of a news report:

As our president said, this has nothing to do with the statue. It is only about rioting, vandalism and looting now.

It is really hard to watch all this happening. I feel a great urge to go help the policemen but I know I'd probably only make thigns worse by being an additional target. I'm quite sure that there are many others like me, I only hope they can resist that urge and will not go to the city tonight. It would make things only worse. This is an extremely delicate matter and if anything goes severely wrong very bad things can happen.

[edit2]
Some discussion here: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=6233&start=0&&&edition=2&ttl=20070427231021
Lots of people all over the world, many have little idea of what and why is going on here so don't take everything literally.

Seems as the head of the Central Pary* is verbally attacking the government for moving the statue. That same head of the party, Edgar Savisaar, is also the major of Tallinn and so far he has done absolutely nothing during the last two days but accusing the government of causing the riots that so far have caused an estimated damage of around €4-5 million. Just remember what Bloomberd did in NY at 9/11. Edgar is pathetic compared to him.

*) By its views it is much closed to (extreme) left than centrality.

[edit3]
Seems as things have mostly calmed down for tonight. Policemen have arrested around 300 more people, ~60 have been hurt, 6 of them were policemen but no serious injuries. Two of the hurt people were policewomen, one young another one older. The older one got hurt while defending a flower booth. From the looks of it she was either punched to face quite hard or some object was thrown.

Central city is almost cleared of people, some rioters have been driven to outskirts of the city and there shouldn't be any big gangs hanging around any more. Maybe 5-20 people at most. There have been rumours that as police has no place to put the arrested people they are being transported to harbour passenger terminal.

It also seems as things cooled down in the other town, Jõhvi, quite fast. There were some vandalism but not too big. Some windows were broken and streetsigns torn out but that seems to be all. Though there were rumours that vandals have moved to another town, Kohtla-Järve. Interesting thing is that this city has a lot more Russians than either Tallin and Jõhvi so if they vandalize something it is likely that they are doing ot to other Russians.

[edit4]
Euronews talks about it and has some videos: http://www.euronews.net/index.php?page=info&article=419294&lng=1

HoHo: the behavior of that people reminds me of some recent internal struggles in my country, but it's worse in Estonia, because of the international problems.

That Savisaar guy, major of Tallinn and head of the central party is just pissing me off. Guess what he is doing while his party main supporters* are rioting on the streets? He blogs from safe distance and does nothing to ensure peace in the city he is supposed to control!
Sorry, in Estonian and I don't think there is any est->en online translators.

*) I can dig up statistics from last parlament elections from a couple of months ago if needed.

One thing he said was especially "interesting" (rough translation):

For what? I tell you for what. Looting, robbing, vandalizing and not following orders given by police. There is no other way to deal with such criminals. There is a whole world of differences between what happened in Russia at the fall of USSR and what is going on today in Tallinn.

Sad thing is that Savisaar has been in high government places since before the fall of USSR. He was our prime minister during our liberation in 1991 and couple of times after that. He is probably the most proficient Estonian politician in the sense that he can manipulate people with ease. During the last elections he narrowly lost to the ones who ordered to move the statue. Too bad he fights for the minorities, not for what most people wants. Unfortunately this is how democracy seems to work