Some of Estonia’s observant and highly trained muckrakers chose last week to point out that Mikko Fritze, head of the Tallinn 2011: European Capital of Culture project, is rewarded for his efforts with a larger salary than that of President Ilves. The Finnish-born German citizen Fritze, previously the head of Tallinn’s Goethe Institute, has been at this present post since the beginning of 2008, long enough for the media to clue in to fiscal realities. And yes, Fritze also makes more than Edgar Savisaar, the mayor of Tallinn, who hired him, rather than an Estonian, to champion Estonia’s cultural strengths on the European stage.
Illustration: Andrus Peegel.