>>513851056 (OP)
go read The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross. it is about Timotheus Von Bock, a kraut from an aristocratic family who was sent to russia during the napoleonic time period in a military exchange. he was a german army officer embedded into the russian army as a russian officer. the czar even offered his sister to him in marriage, to which he refused, preferring to marry a peasant estonian girl and take her brother along as an assistant.
the point is this, he recommended to the balts and russians to adopt the american style of government and constitution. this led to him having all his teeth knocked out by the same czar, in addition to the estonians having to keep him around in Poltsamaa until he was murdered by his russian watcher. timo von bock tried to have the gusto typical of a military officer with the local estonians, but he just couldn't get them enthusiastic. if you go searching around the interwebs about estonian jokes, you'll find that most of them are deadpan and proudly emphasize their slowness and stupidity.
during that time, the germans and russians both learned the same lesson learned in the old times of the Hanseatic league- balts are limp, tepid, fickle, stupid, meek, and weak willed. their newest commanding general of their military made his first speech and mission plan to the public to involve running away from the russians and evacuating the country, military included, to let NATO (aka americans) come in and do the old article 5 gambit, claiming the estonian defense forces will be needed when they retake estonia after the americans and nato beat the russians, for them. I lived in Tallinn for a while, being a good little zogbot. you can depend on them for effete things, like administrative or IT work, but when it comes to manly muscle work beyond residential construction and light manufacturing, you aren't going to find anything in them.
I know a few good estonians. there aren't many.