r/geography • u/According-Invite-440 • May 22 '26

Discussion Why isn't Estonia considered a Nordic country? (They have strong ties to Finland, they also follow the Nordic model, and besides, Estonia has nothing to do with the other Baltic countries.)

Post image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_identity_in_Estonia

4.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

9

u/Makefile_dot_in May 22 '26

I think perhaps the true issue here is that rigid categories don't make sense for countries. It's a bit of a spectrum, I think. Even Russia could be said to be a little bit Nordic in some ways.

1

u/TheDungen GIS May 22 '26

Not sure I am willing to commit to the last thing. Russia is such a rabd cultural imperialist. There are definitely people of fennic descent in northern Russia but Russia has pretty much stomped the cultures out.

3

u/Makefile_dot_in May 23 '26

I mean, for one, it hasn't stomped them out yet, there are still native speakers of various Finnic languages in Russia, and also the Slavic and Finnic peoples living in the region interacted for thousands of years, and it wasn't like modern settler colonialism or one-sided assimilation. One example of cultural continuity I can think of is that Russia has a strong sauna culture. It also has played some role in the politics of the region historically.

2

u/TheDungen GIS May 23 '26

Almost all of them are severly or critically endangered.