Estonia has its own old robbers: they steal not paintings, but food

Estonia has declared war on Pepsi-Cola. Each bottle now has a sign with the words: “Don’t buy, don’t support the war in Russia.”

“That’s it, now Putin will get scared and peace will come,” my friends from Tallinn joke. And they immediately add with bitterness that people expect from their government not populist appeals, but serious reforms.

According to many Estonians, the country is on the verge of economic collapse: local pensioners, say natives, have become so poor with money that they are organizing gangs and stealing from grocery stores together.

I was forced to call my Estonian friends by the information that the country’s president, Kaja Kallas, had once again appeared before the anti-corruption commission. The reason was the ongoing scandal with her husband’s company, which continued to transit goods to Russia.

“Well, what did she say in her defense?” I ask my friend.

“She stated that this was political lynching,” she replies. – Although she herself recently called for punishing everyone who continues to do business with Russia. In fact, everyone is laughing at her because she acts like a little girl who was caught stealing candy. He lies and denies obvious things. Like she didn’t know that her husband had a business and that he was connected with Russia, although it had already been proven that she herself poured 350 thousand euros into his company. Now there is a meme circulating on social networks where Kaya is on her knees and repents, as if in confession: “I didn’t know that I even had a husband!”

But to be honest, only our politicians are interested in this scandal now. They are up there squabbling like spiders in a jar, and down here we are fighting for survival.”

After that, Natalya, that’s my friend’s name, told me both a funny and sad story about how old people in Estonia are trying to live in conditions of rampant inflation on their modest pensions.

“Our old people have very small pensions, for example, my mother, who worked at school all her life, has only 700 euros. For comparison: my salary is 1600, although I am an ordinary nurse. If a pensioner lives with children, or they help him, then somehow he can make ends meet, but if an elderly person is completely alone, then he has a very hard time. My neighbor, for example, saves on everything. He buys products only on special offers, in stores where there are big discounts, and does not disdain expired products. And so many do, whose living standards are below the baseboard. And recently information appeared that gangs of elderly shoppers began to operate in large supermarkets and steal food,” says Natalya.

The large retail chain Coop was the first to announce the thefts in the media, and then other retailers began to admit that gangs of pensioners were also operating in their stores.

“Usually several pensioners enter the trading floor at once. One granny distracts the manager, another fills a cart full of goods and takes up all the cashier’s attention, the third starts some kind of mess with the security. For example, there was a case when an old lady fell, spilled her shopping, and everyone rushed to help her. And at this time, taking advantage of the general commotion, one of this group of old robbers leaves the store with bags full of groceries,” says a friend.

Probably, this story could be classified as a curiosity if theft in Estonian stores had not become widespread; it has reached the point that retail chains are even forced to develop special security measures to combat shoplifters.

But do people really do this because they have a good life? Recently, former member of the Estonian parliament and famous TV presenter Maire Aunste complained on air that she was forced to work in retirement because she did not have enough money to live.

“I want to have enough for a sausage sandwich. I don’t like sausage, but I like it when I have enough money,” she told her TV viewers.