Back on the Map: Adventures in Newly Independent Estonia

The year is 1992. The smallest of the former Soviet republics has recently regained its freedom following a half-century of repressive occupation. Estonia is back on the map. So what happens now? This evocative memoir vividly captures the frantic yet optimistic spirit of an extraordinary moment in time, providing a detailed and moving account of daily life in a country undergoing dramatic change just a year after the collapse of the Soviet empire. In these pages you'll become immersed in this tumultuous period and come to know a remarkable succession of real people--Estonians and Russians, students and teachers, capitalists and Communists--as they struggle to rebuild their lives and make ends meet in a collapsing economy while working to reinvent their battered nation. The author, recruited to teach at the first private business school to be established in the former Soviet Union, candidly recounts experiences that are by turns grim, hilarious, and poignant.

Marc Hyman lived in Estonia for five years. During this period he taught accounting, finance, and economics for the Estonian Business School and for Concordia International University Estonia (now International University Audentes), provided consulting services to Hansabank, North Estonian Bank, Raebank, and Virumaa Commerce Bank, and served as Tallinn Bureau Chief for The Baltic Observer (now The Baltic Times) and as Managing Editor of The Baltic Business Leader. He currently teaches accounting and business at Cascadia Community College in Bothell, Washington, is a member of the University of Washington’s Baltic Studies Roundtable, and blogs about Estonian issues at estoniaonthemap.com. His accounts of day-to-day life in the newly independent Baltic States and Russia have been published in Crosscurrents, Yours Truly, and Europe Today. He lives in Seattle with his wife and son.