Thanks for the link! I never knew about the details, but our tour guide - who was half Russian, half Estonian - did mention it as a side note and said that the gray passports are becoming of lower and lower relevance for younger generations like hers, who can choose the nationality.

As I mentioned earlier, I gave a pure perspective as a visitor in Estonia for less than one week, my experience was positive. The locals were friendly (trust me, it's not everywhere you feel welcome when you have brown skin). I understand that every place has a deep history, objective facts, and very subjective perspectives - the nuances of which I am not qualified to write about, due to my limited knowledge, from not being born or raised in Estonia.

I apologize, if it has hurt your sentiments - and certainly I am not amazed and inspired to know this in detail.

I can understand and deeply connect to where the sentiments stem from though - I was born and grew up in a place called Goa, which was a Portuguese colony for nearly 500 years, but became a part of India in 1961 and is since then very popular tourist destination.

- Most of the tourists admire the portuguese feel, the artichecture, and talk about the positive aspects of holidaying there.

- What I learned in history books was a story of Portuguese oppression and bloody revolts.

- What I heard as a real life account from my grandma (born in 1913), who spent a majority of her life in 'Portuguese Goa': "it was just...life as usual, except that you could see a lot of Portuguese people around."

From these 3 perspectives, I hold all 3, without any emotion. Maybe for some it was positive, for some, neutral, and for some, negative.

For me it's a part of history and a coincidence of birth, no control whatsoever.

Couple of years back, I thought it was tactless of tourists to not know this simple fact. How could they not!? It's there in history books!

But after travelling nearly 30 countries, I realised our history books are limited, and our minds are limited. And historical perspectives from people are often conflicting.

Just as visitors are blind to certain facts about my home, I am guily of doing the same when I visit another - despite keeping a very open mind.

I no longer expect the tourists to know the detailed history, nor to have any bias, or to have the same perspective as as I do.

Most of them are on a holiday for a week, will enjoy the sun, sea and sand (which is just sad, if you don't understand the culture a bit more). Of course there are visitors, who come for research purposes, who will stay longer and do a nuanced study. The tourists will write about one perspective which they experienced, the researchers, another. Both true (or somtimes, both objectively false).

Regading the topic of passports, phew, where to begin, I can write a whole post and go on and on. Who else to give a first hand perspective than a Former-Portuguese-colony-descended-Indian-immigrant-who-got-naturalized-as-German? :D

My dad was born before 1961, so he was officially Portuguese, but for a long time in a limbo when Goa became a part of India. He chose to be Indian.

I had the theoretical possibility to be naturalized as Portuguese too, as a descendant, but I never did.

I only realized the hassle of 'visas' when I came to study in Germany, of how difficult it is, if you, say get a possibility to work in the US?

Or if you wanted to visit Canada and you did'nt know you needed a freakin' visa for a layover in the US, dispite already having a visa to Canada, which took over a month to process by the way? (I had to cancel the whole trip).

I finally opted to get the German nationality after several years of working here- to prevent the hassle of applying visas, (not just for work, but even to set foot inside the border) everwhere, all the time - something that people born in the Europe, US, Canada will never know or experience.

So, it's not just Estonia, the world in general is, if I may say, unfair and passport-classist, skewed towards better mobility for those born in the west, and towards those that have money. Which means, if you are lucky to be born in the West, you have lots of easy travel and work options - else, if you are rich, you can get one of the powerful passports even if you have some shady business going on.

And as you mentioned and is clear from the link, whenever possible, passports power is also wielded as a political tool.

So, yes. you are right, it is unfair and downright pathetic. Most immigrants, including me, have experienced similar situation first hand, and I feel the pain.

On a good note, it is something that our Tour guide in Estonia said is getting better, and is not so relevant for the younger generations.

I hope so.

And I wish it gets better throughout the world.

Cheers!