in memoriam Lennu

Lennart Meri, probably the wisest, nicest and most respected president Estonia has ever had.
Swedish former prime minister has also written his thoughts about L. Meri and made available a speach L. Meri held in Stockholm in 1999, which is definitely worth of reading. The richness of L. Meri's language using and his knowledge about our complicated world is worth of admire.

I'm glad that I happened to graduate high-school at the time, when L. Meri was the president. I have not forgotten his reception for high-school graduates in June 2000. We (and by that I mean a bunch of students) were standing at the garden of the president's palace, really hot sun shining directly at us, and waiting for him to come. We were trained by his staff, to come from one side and go to the other, like it has always been, and all the steps were quite planned. Then, L. Meri finally came and saw that we are all melting under the sun. He kindly asked us to move to the other side of the garden, to the shadow. We could see the confusion on the face of the women who had trained us, but of course we went to the other side, since president was telling us to go. After that we got a medal and a handshake from Lennart Meri, all one by one, and he wished something nice to all of us individually. Pictures of that handshake unfortunately got mixed up in the mail, and I got a picture of someone else shaking president's hand, but I still have the moment saved in my head.

Lennart Meri was not only loved and respected by lots of people in Estonia, but also by lots of people outside of Estonian borders. A real wise and fair president.