Bronze Soldier Breaks Bank

The numbers are in, the figures have all been tabulated, the mathematicians all sent home. According to an Estonian newspaper, Estonia's government spent a whopping 70 million kroons (that's over $6 million USD) to remove and relocate the Bronze Soldier monument and repair damage from his Red rampage through downtown Tallinn on April 27th and 28th (okay, that's not exactly what happened, but we've been talking about this for awhile now...).

This figure covers the full cost of everything since the Estonian government's decision to relocate the Soviet Soldier. That's the cost of the monument's removal, the cost of exhuming and identifying the 12 Russian soldiers found beneath the monument, repairing the extensive damage from the subsequent riots and compensating private owners for damages, the planting of greenery where the monument formerly stood, the cost of security protecting the site from protesters, the cost of re-erecting the monument and reburying the graves in their new location, and overtime compensation for police including food, transportation and uniforms. What it doesn't account for is (ongoing) damage to Estonia's economy as a result of the monument shenanigans. Much of Estonia's financial and economic transactions with Russia have been frozen, and a Russian boycott of Estonian products is ongoing (to say nothing of that cyberwar business).