''Eesti Ekspress'' (''Estonian Express'') is an

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

n weekly newspaper. Founded in 1989, ''Eesti Ekspress'' was the first politically independent newspaper in the

Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic The Estonian SSR,, russian: Эстонская ССР officially the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic,, russian: Эстонская Советская Социалистическая Республика was an ethnically based adminis ...

during the Soviet control of Estonia. The paper is published by AS Eesti Ajalehed, a part of the public media company

Ekspress Grupp Ekspress Grupp is an Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Swe ...

(EEG1T) that is listed on the

Tallinn Stock Exchange The Nasdaq Tallinn AS, formerly known as the Tallinn Stock Exchange, is a stock exchange operating in Tallinn, Estonia. Nasdaq Tallinn is the only regulated secondary securities market in Estonia. The major stock market index is Nasdaq Tallinn, fo ...

. In March 2010 the newspaper shifted to a magazine-like

format Format may refer to: Printing and visual media * Text formatting, the typesetting of text elements * Paper formats, or paper size standards * Newspaper format, the size of the paper page Computing * File format, particular way that informatio ...

(275×355mm) resembling ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' and ''

Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Ori ...

''.

History and profile

The paper was founded in 1989. The first issue was published on 22 September 1989. Making use of

Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...

's policies of

perestroika ''Perestroika'' (; russian: links=no, перестройка, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg) was a political movement for reform within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s widely associated wit ...

and

glasnost ''Glasnost'' (; russian: link=no, гласность, ) has several general and specific meanings – a policy of maximum openness in the activities of state institutions and freedom of information, the inadmissibility of hushing up problems, ...

, it was established as a weekly newspaper in 1989 by Hans H. Luik and others. The headquarters is in

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju ' ...

. The newspaper has been published throughout its history in essentially the same format, although with a number of appendices. The day of the issue changed from Thursday to Wednesday on 30 April 2014. ''Eesti Ekspress'' has a liberal stance and is one of the investigative publications in Estonia. The newspaper has broken a number of important stories and been known for its innovation-mindedness. Considerably thicker than other newspapers of the late Soviet era, it was one of the first to make use of

digital publishing Electronic publishing (also referred to as publishing, digital publishing, or online publishing) includes the digital publication of e-books, digital magazines, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. It also includes the editi ...

technologies and

photographic typesetting Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing (digital typesetting). The ...

. Consequently, it has been notorious for popularising the incorrect usage of 'sh' and 'zh' in substitution of the characters 'š' and 'ž', which in late 1980s were rather inconvenient for computer processing but appear in a number of Estonian loanwords (e.g. ''garaaž'', borrowed from French ''

garage A garage is a covered structure built for the purpose of parking, storing, protecting, maintaining, and/or repairing vehicles. Specific applications include: *Garage (residential), a building or part of a building for storing one or more vehicle ...

'' and ''tšau'' from Italian '' ciao'') and names transliterated from Slavic languages, most importantly,

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

. The newspaper remains one of the most popular newspapers in Estonia, with a circulation of 28,000 copies in 2015.

References

External links

* 1989 establishments in Estonia Defunct newspapers published in Estonia Estonian-language newspapers Magazines established in 2010 Mass media in Tallinn Newspapers established in 1989 Publications disestablished in 2010 {{Estonia-newspaper-stub