PALDISKI - Eesti Kunstiakadeemia / Estonian Academy of Arts

4 SCENARIOS FOR
PALDISKI
CREATING STORIES
ABOUT THE FUTURE

PROJECT BY THE URBAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT
ESTONIAN ACADEMY OF ARTS
STUDENTS: MARIS KURME, NAIRA CHILINGARIAN, REGINA VILJASAAR
TUTORS: PROF. PANU LUHTOVUORI, LILIA DEL RIO, KALLE KOMISSAROV
FERUARY - MAY 2007
4 SCENARIOS FOR
PALDISKI
CREATING STORIES
ABOUT THE FUTURE

CONTENTS
CONTENTS
SCENARIO PLANNING
PALDISKI
OVERVIEW
WHAT CONCERNS US
PALDISKI IN THE MINDS OF ESTONIANS
OUR WORK
CHILDREN - THE FUTURE OF PALDISKI
PALDISKI - A CITY OF FLOWS
MAIN QUESTIONS
UNCERTAINTIES - THE AXIS
CHILDRENS' DRAWINGS
PHOTOS
4 SCENARIOS
CONCLUSIONS
REFERENCES, INTERESTING LINKS
APPENDIX 1 - INTERVIEWS WITH LOCAL ACTORS
APPENDIX 2 - DEMOGRAPHICAL STATISTICS
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SCENARIO PLANNING
“The senior managers of large corporations […] increasingly have to choose the right thing
to do: set a course, steer through the strategic issues that cloud their companies’ horizons”
(Wilkinson).
Developed during the 1990’s as a response to the large number of uncertainties in the future
of companies, cities and world issues, scenario planning is an efficient tool to understand
the elements that play a key role in decisions taken now, and invariably affect the future.
It is a strategic form of planning that aims at discovering the hidden potentials of today
and explore them as possibilities and realiti es in the future.
Scenario thinking is best when uncertainty is high, since it aims at recognising trends and
predicting visions of reality, based on those critical uncertainties that will in the future play a
key role: “Scenario planning begins by identifying the focal issue or decision. There are an infinite
number of stories that we could tell about the future; our purpose is to tell those
that matter, that lead to better decisions” (Wilkinson).
The power of scenario planning and strategic thinking lies in its intuitive approach: “This is not
a linear, mechanistic, number driven process, but more of a dance and sufficiently intuitive.
Such storytelling allows people to find the most pleasing scenario. Then they can start figuring
out how to make it happen” (Garreau)
“Henry Mintzberg, professor of management at McGill University, argues that strategy can
only be understood in retrospect, when we are able to analyze and see patterns in what has
actually happened. Most managers do not find this view appealing. They believe there is a
consistent pattern connecting the quality of their thinking with their resulting success and failure:
good thinking should improve the chances of success - it is highly unsatisfactory to make
big strategic decisions by rolling dice” (Van der Heijden)
The following scenarios are all considered to be equally valuable. There is no one best
or worst scenario, but the real future is an integration of the best qualities and practices
of all the scenarios. Fleshing out the scenarios brings us to a vision of the city of
Paldiski as it may be played out in today’s decisions.
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PALDISKI
OVERVIEW
Paldiski is a small city of roughly 4000 inhabitants, situated in the North-Western part of Estonia. It
occupies the whole Pakri peninsula and also two islands of Big Pakri and Small Pakri. In itself it is
not a very old, Peter the Great founded it in 1718 on the site of a small fishing village. Peter’s wish,
however, was to create a sea fortress and the location was good - the bay is very deep and the
sea never freezes in this port, unlike in other Estonian harbours. Its name became from Russian
– Baltiiski meant Baltic in Russian language; later it developed to more Estonian Paldiski.
In 1939 it became a center for Russian army in Estonia and ever since that time it has had quite a
negative reputation among Estonians and till now the first allusions are gloomy - pollution, Russian
occupation, Russian inhabitants and secrecy that has surrounded it for years. The place could also
look a little bit more reassuring. By now the biggest monument to Russian power has been torn
down – the colossal building of Pentagon. Also the army caserns and other military objects are in
an critical state by now, so one might expect them to follow the same fate sooner or later. Most
of the sea is closed in by the two ports – North Harbour, which is privately owned, and the South
Harbour that is managed by the Port of Tallinn company. These two are the main exonomic activity
supports of the Paldiski town, but unfortunately they have also separated the sea and the beach
from the town itself.
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WHAT CONCERNS US
Around 70% of the city’s inhabitants are still Russians and Russian school is somewhat bigger
there than its Estonian equivalent. Speaking of which – Paldiski is completely dualistic city. They
have two of everything there – one for Estonians and one for Russians. Yet the city council chairman,
the police and other administrative people confirm there is no crunch between two nationalities
there. Schoolchildren seem to think the opposite.
Paldiski itself wishes strongly to step up against the negative image it still tends to have in the eyes
of outsiders. They are promoting the slogan „The city of green energy“ in contrast to the image of
secrecy, pollution and ugliness, that is still unfortunately prevalent. Indeed, they have magnificent
nature and in the tip of the peninsula there is a windmill park they’re planning to expand as well as
a beautiful cliff. Sadly even if people know about it now, they just pass through Paldiski very fast to
see the cliff and then get back, not to stay in Paldiski. About 800 people, which is most of the working-age
locals,, commute every day to Tallinn, so most of the time this town IS pretty miserable
and backwards. And THIS was exactly why it appeared in our area of interest.
PALDISKI IN THE MINDS OF ESTONIANS
In our discussions was often revealed the fact that for many Estonians, the image of Paldiski
nowadays is still covered by a dark cloud of memories from the Soviet period as a closed, mainly
Russian, town. This backward thinking poses a great disadvantage in planning a bright future for
Paldiski, yet it is presented here also as an opportunity.
It is a matter of 2 or 3 generations when memories of the Soviet period will not be present in
people’s minds any more. For the coming generations’ sake, it is important to keep monuments
and heritage sites in order to explain history vividly. In our strategic thinking, keeping and restoring
Soviet heritage sites are key for a prosperous development of Paldiski by a conscious regeneration
through contemporary uses.
Cities and regions are more than ever being developed through strategic thinking. In the fastchanging
world, cities cannot keep satisfying only their primary, immediate needs. Cities are being
replaced by regions and isolation by networking. Competitiveness in a regional and global scale
are important if a city wants to keep their boat afloat in the sea of the contemporary world.
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OUR WORK
Estonian Academy of Arts students from the Urban Studies faculty started working on Paldiski in
January 2007. The research and works included both – fieldwork and brainkwork in the classroom.
We started by gathering as much information as possible, also while going there and making
interviews with the local authorities and people. We organised a questionnaire in both schools of
Paldiski to find out how the local kids of different ages see their home town and in the end we were
trying to take all the findings into account and suggest four different ways or options that Paldiski
could become.
CHILDREN - THE FUTURE OF PALDISKI
Fieldwork for the project consisted in finding out how Paldiski is portrayed in the minds of its
children. We organised a questionnaire among the schoolchildren of different ages: 3rd, 4th, 10th,
11th and 12th grade students, so approximately ages 10-12 and 16-18. We were asking their
opinion on Paldiski and also what they think might be its future and what qualities the city has in
their minds. An interesting thing that came out was that their ideas differed greatly from the ones
expressed by for example Jaan Mölder. In their opinion the biggest plus that the city has is the nature
– they adore the cliffs, the sea, the beach, the lighthouse, the windmills… And dislike strongly
the Alexela petrol terminal, noisy and ugly city center and industrial outlooks. It was very very rare
if someone didn’t mention the lack of entertainment in Paldiski – whereas most of the high school
students asked for a cafeteria or a restaurant, the younger children had more fantasy and in their
opinion there could be a zoo, a castle and a cinema over there. The children also seem to feel the
conflict between two nationalities more, because both of them find the school of the others annoying
and disliked it and several Estonians mentioned that the reason they would like to move away
from Paldiski is the ethnic situation. Other than that, most of the students were certain they will
move away from Paldiski; the tendency was lower among younger students. Of the high school
students only 2 mentioned that they are planning to come back after finishing their studies; the others
would just visit friends from time to time.
PALDISKI - A CITY OF FLOWS
From everything said above, we started narrowing down the biggest flows and actors that are at
work in Paldiski. The generalisations that could be made are quite interesting. Namely Paldiski is
active in quite several fields: big ports, beautiful nature, contemporary army study center, windmill
park that, if enlarged, could produce a remarkable percentage of Estonia’s need of energy… BUT
all of it goes through and over and around Paldiski. Paldiski doesn’t actually benefit from any of
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it, at least not as much as it could. The energy goes through, Paldiski doesn’t use it. The nature
attracts people from other parts of Estonia too, but nobody stays to look around Paldiski before or
after going to the cliffs. The cargo moves, but no people.
In addition to that, the inhabitants of Paldiski have been quite passive in ameliorating their own
surroundings. Part of it is definitely caused by the social structure of Paldiski – there are many old
Russian widows of military officers living there and definitely their health and economic situation
might not be the best. There is also a surprising number of children living in Paldiski, but their parents,
however, mainly all work in Tallinn, so they spend most of their time and energy on commuting
and bringing home money.
MAIN QUESTIONS
The previous generalization we again tried to put in more concise form and therefore we reached
to the conclusion that there are three main things that should be viewed in an attempt t omake
Paldiski a more vivid and lively place. These are:
- How to mobilise the people: how to make them participate more and get them to help to make
Paldiski a better place for themselves.
- How to capture the flows: how to make the town benefit more from everything it is dealing with
and everything that has been going over Paldiski until now.
- What could be the attraction of paldiski: Expanding to the maximum the “green energy city”
motto of Paldiski, and add other values and ideas that lead to a real identity and a strong image of
Paldiski.
UNCERTAINTIES
While projecting different futures for the city of Paldiski, we have recognised certain factors which
play an important role in the future of Paldiski. While the city develops itself as a potential area for
new dwellers and new business, it is still bound to Tallinn, both by economical reasons as well as
by geographical situation. This poses a great oportunity for exploring itself as a leading zone within
the reach of the big metropolis. Another certain quality of Paldiski is its natural environment, and
it should be kept as a priority when developing a strategic growth of the city, since it plays a major
role on its quality as a city.
Yet there are many more questions that remain open in the future of the region. Some of these
depend greately on the city’s decisions made now, while others depend upon greater political conflicts,
such as the relationship between Estonia and Russia. Paldiski’s future as well as many
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4 SCENARIOS:
NO CHANGE,
MONO-USE
COMPANY TOWN,
VILLAGE
“ICON”, ONE
BIG IDEA
IT CAMPUS PORT CITY
SLOW CITY
GRASSROOTS DEVELOPMENT,
MULTICULTURALITY,
MANY SMALL IDEAS
MORE PEOPLE
CREATIVE
LANDSCAPE
MORE URBAN
MORE EVERYTHING
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REFERENCES
Garreau, Joel, 1994, “The Global Business Network”, in Wired 2.11, 1994, p 98
Kees van der Heijden, 1997, “Scenarios, Strategy, and the Strategy Process”,
in Presearch: provoking strategic conversation. Vol. 1, Nr. 1. Published by the Global Business
Network. Available in pdf format through www.gbn.com
Global Business Network, “About Scenarios”.
http://www.gbn.com/AboutScenariosDisplayServlet.srv
Lawrence Wilkinson, 1995, “How to Build Scenarios”, in Wired Scenarios Special Issue, October
1995, Wired 3.11, p 74
INTERESTING LINKS
http://www.slowmovement.com (Slow city movement)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cittaslow (Slow city movement)
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APPENDIX 1: INTERVIES WITH LOCAL ACTORS
MARCH 3, 2007, PALDISKI
THE CITY COUNCIL CHAIRMAN JAAN MÖLDER
A long-time Paldiski City Council Chairman Jaan Mölder gave us a long interview where he
explained his vision of the future of Paldiski. In his view Paldiski will not connect its future with
tourism and instead the main attention will be turned towards developing the ports and technopark:
a center of offices, firms and companies that would also bring an expected number of 3000 new
workers to the town. The first thing that’s in plan to build is a new school and a waste water treatment
center. Entertainment is less important and probably not too lucrative in a city of such size.
An interesting idea he suggested was about the airport of Paldiski, which is quite big and if necessary
works were finished, it could help to take the load off the international airport of Tallinn for
example. After all, Paldiski is just 52km away from the capital!
The city officials see their town to grow in the nearest future – they expect to bring new workers for
technopark from Ida-Virumaa. Also they expect a growth of villa area in the Eastern part of Paldiski.
This would be ideally the place where Tallinners buy their houses as it’s still in the commuting
range of 50km, but it’s on seashore and in a quiet place… In longer-term view the dream seems to
be also to move the city of Paldisky to the Eastern part of the peninsula.
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THE CHIEF OF POLICE
From the local chief of police we heard a confirmation to Jaan Mölder’s claim that Paldiski is a safe
city and that main problem is the usual bunch of vodka-loving people who the officer has to bring
to sleep to the station occasionally. Other than that he confirmed it’s calm and though he’s not
living in Paldiski himself, he wouldn’t mind moving there. WHICH is in itself an example of the fact
that Paldiski simply lacks the services and attractiveness to hold its locals in there.
PORT AUTHORITIES
The people working in the South Port shed a lot of light in how much exactly the port does. This is
one of the most important activities in the town, but the work is controlled from Tallinn, as the port
is owned by the Port of Tallinn. Mainly it deals with cargo shipping and though there used to be
passenger ships to Sweden for example (Paldiski-Kapellskär), then these are closed by now. The
only passengers that use it are mostly the drivers of cargo vehicles and besides them the cargo
ships can take about 6-8 passengers. However, as cargo and transportation is important in Paldiski,
then an idea of opening a railway connection with China (through Russia) is thought about
and planned, which would open another lucrative transportation channel to Paldiski. It should be
mentioned though, especially in today’s political climate, that it depends quite much on Russia’s
behaviour and the interest in their side, for most of the ties that Paldiski has in that matter are with
our huge Eastern neighbour.
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APPENDIX 2: DEMOGRAPHY
In January 2007:
4190 people, men 1851, women 2339
Rate of dpenedents: 44,8 % of the population (average of Estonia: 46,6 %)
Inhabitants per square kilometer: 69.6 (average of Estonia: 31)
Demographic labor merket index: 395 (whole Estonia: 148 901)
The population of Paldiski in January 2007 (the Office of Statistics)
women
men
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