March 29, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Oceans stretch from Estonia to MMA> Visit highlights links between two academies, proud maritime traditions

CASTINE — If Maine is the way life should be, then Estonia has a lot to look forward to.

Like Maine, the northernmost Baltic republic has about 1.4 million people, hundreds of miles of coastline, and an economy that has traditionally relied on fishing and forestry.

“Estonia and Maine are very similar,” said Capt. Peeter Veegan, the rector of the Estonian Maritime Academy. Estonian and American marine officers discovered these surprising similarities through a series of exchanges that began this year between Maine Maritime Academy and its counterpart in Tallinn, Estonia’s capital.

Like MMA, the Estonian Maritime Academy has about 620 students, from regimental ship officers for the Navy and Merchant Marine to oceanography majors.

The exchange “has gone from just looking at ways we can educate our professional maritime officers to what the two academies could do together to what the state of Maine and the country of Estonia could do together,” said MMA provost Bill Eisenhardt.

Maine Maritime has long swapped students and faculty with Russia’s maritime academy in St. Petersburg. But since January of this year, it has also developed a relationship with Estonia, a small, forested country that juts out into the Baltic Sea as though perched uncomfortably on Mother Russia’s shoulder.

After 50 years of Soviet rule ended in 1992, Estonian leaders and institutions have been learning about the ways of the western world. For maritime officers, that learning has led them to Castine, where they are studying the Maine Maritime Academy as a model for their own institution.

As Veegan puts it, “We do not need to invent the bicycle again.” Veegan, U.S. military liaison Inna Kumnik, and five officers from the Estonian Maritime Academy arrived in Castine this week to share ideas with the Maine Maritime officers, collect training manuals, and catch an early glimpse at spring. It was snowing when they left Tallin on Sunday.

“Too nice to be true,” is how Veegan described the MMA campus, a pleasantly landscaped array of brick buildings that overlook the town’s white Colonial homes and sparkling blue harbor. “We know we cannot have this in five years,” Veegan said, “but maybe in 25, for the next generation.”

Capt. Phil Shullo, a Penn State graduate who runs MMA’s Navy ROTC program, launched the exchange when he visited Tallinn in January knowing no more about the fledgling republic than what he could glean from books and the Internet. It began through a single — but to Estonians, novel — idea: civilian control over the military.

The visiting Estonian officers are particularly interested in the Navy ROTC training, as Estonia is building up its own Navy and marine border guard.

While senior cadets at MMA supervise the younger cadets just as though they were their superiors on-board as shipmates or engineers, Veegan noted that leadership development was not a strong point in traditional training for the Soviet Navy.

Because of its proximity to Finland (Estonians could tune into Finnish TV during the Soviet era), Estonia has adapted more quickly to a Western-style economy than its neighbors to the south, Latvia and Lithuania. English is spreading fast as the second language, and American and Scandinavian fast-food joints have appeared on Tallin’s medieval streets.

Coastal fishing is replacing the Russian ocean fishing fleet, and Estonians are discussing the need to build their own paper mills instead of exporting raw lumber to Scandinavia. That theme has a familiar ring for the Maine officers, who suggested that the Estonians visit the University of Maine’s pulp and paper technology department before leaving today.

The exchange between the two academies will continue in June when the MMA’s training ship, the State of Maine, stops off in Tallinn for several days on its international trade voyage.


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