MOSCOW October 13. /TASS/. Director of the Russian Ethnology and Anthropology Institute Valery Tishkov is hoping for an apology from the Estonian authorities who have sent him back to Russia from Tallinn airport. The Russian academician, who arrived in Estonia on Sunday evening at the invitation of the Imressum media club, was denied entry to Estonia despite his valid Schengen visa.
"I was not allowed through Passport Control at Tallinn airport. They told me I was banned from visiting Estonia in accordance with a decision made by the Estonian authorities on October 9," Valery Tishkov told TASS. He returned to Moscow on Monday morning.
After the 73-year old Russian scientist arrived in Tallinn, he was sent to a transit zone of Tallinn airport where he had been kept in a room paid for by the organizers who invited the Russian scientist to Estonia. Tishkov underlined that his Schengen visa was still valid.
The Estonian border guards gave no reasons for his expulsion; they merely said that he should look it up on a website of the corresponding service on the Internet, Tishkov said. "I hope that the Estonian authorities will clarify the situation," Tishkov said. He wonders if the decision of the Estonian authorities applied to him personally, which "is unlikely because I have never made any sharp statements addressed to Estonia," Tishkov said.
He reminded of the fact that his fellow colleagues — historians and anthropologists from Estonia, had been visiting different regions of Russia and rather often made unpleasant statements during their visits, but no one had ever denied them entry to Russia.
" I think I may hope for an apology from the Estonian authorities," Tishkov said.
Tishkov said he had been planning to deliver lectures in Tallinn about the Russian Federation and its recent scientific achievements and hoped to meet representatives of the Estonian public, in particular, its Russian-speaking representatives.
Valery Tishkov is a prominent international figure in science: he is the Vice-President of the International Union of Anthropologic and Ethnologic Sciences and President of the International Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences. Tishkov is also a member of the governmental commission for the affairs of compatriots abroad and a member of the Russian commission for UNESCO affairs. Valery Tishkov is the author of more than 200 scientific publications.