For Estonians, Queen trumps Emperor - but only just

By Ben Nimmo May 24, 2007, 19:29 GMT

Tallinn - As the people of Tallinn gathered on Thursday to welcome Japan's Emperor Akihito to their city, one very undiplomatic question troubled the diplomatic atmosphere.

'Will he be as popular as the British queen?' commentators asked diplomats mischievously as they awaited the emperor's arrival.

Last October, Britain's Queen Elizabeth II visited the three Baltic states on the first-ever tour of a ruling British monarch to the region.

The visit aroused massive interest in Estonia, with an estimated 10,000 people crowding into the city's mediaeval centre to pay their respects to the monarch.

On Thursday - a spring day which began with blustering winds and ended in brilliant sunshine - around 5,000 people greeted the world's only emperor with song, flowers and waving flags.

Up to 1,000 waited in the main square to catch a glimpse of the emperor as he attended a function hosted by Tallinn's mayor.

'Compared with the recent visits by the queen and (US President) George Bush, the emperor is obviously number three. But the queen and Bush are right at the top, so number three isn't so bad,' said Andres Kasekamp, head of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute.

'You can't compare the two visits - the queen is European, and she's so famous everywhere,' musician Jandra Puusepp added.

Despite the discrepancy in the number of people attending the royal and imperial visits, those Estonians who came to see the emperor were in no doubt as to the importance of the visit.

'It's important for a country as small as Estonia to have such guests. It's a very, very important visit,' the Estonian wife of one of the country's top sushi producers, Tagi Hammaja, said.

Nor did they think that the relatively lower attendance of the imperial visit bore any reflection on their guest.

'The main event today was the song festival. Not so many people could go there, because it was in the afternoon, and this is a working day,' Tallinn resident Maria Alajoe said.

'The emperor is very exotic, but Britain is much closer, and a lot of Estonians have seen the queen in London. I know I have,' theologian Tarmo Lilleoja added.

For many, the reason for the difference was simply the influence of the media.

'The queen is just more famous as a person. She's written about everywhere,' Tallinn resident Liis Palumets said.

'It's a publicity problem. Estonians are just as interested in the emperor as the queen, maybe even more, because he's more exotic,' a 37-year-old man who called himself Jaanus added.

And as the sun set in a blue sky over the white stone walls of Tallinn's mediaeval centre, the vast majority of onlookers were in no doubt that the visit was the most important diplomatic event of this year, at least.

'It's a great honour for Estonia to have him here, because he's the only emperor in the world,' a schoolboy called Gustav said.

That is a distinction which not even a queen can trump.