Polina is one such formerly stateless person, who exchanged her gray alien's passport for a maroon Estonian passport two years ago.

"I'm a board member of the nonprofit Lasnaidee, meaning an active civil society representative, and I felt ashamed when I had to say that I had a gray passport," Polina recalled. "That was the main motivator for me."

According to a recent study commissioned by the Ministry of Culture and Integration Foundation and conducted by the Institute of Baltic Studies (IBS), 65 percent of the nearly 60,000 stateless persons living in Estonia would like to obtain Estonian citizenship and are willing to actively work toward achieving that goal.

"In the next year, around 15 percent of them plan to apply for Estonian citizenship," highlighted Kristjan Kaldur, program manager for migration and integration studies at IBS. "Around 40-45 percent have more specific plans for the next five years. But I'd add here that around 79 percent of them have this abstract desire for Estonian citizenship, which actually indicates pretty significant interest in Estonian citizenship."

The same study, however, shows that some stateless persons do not see much value in Estonian citizenship. For some, finding a job, for example, may be more important. There are also those who feel let down by the Estonian state; however, Kaldur says they make up only a small share.

"This group is, after all, inherently diverse," he acknowledged. "You'll see different desires, different expectations, different disappointments and frustrations. But we certainly cannot claim that a significant number of them pose a threat to the Republic of Estonia or its security."

The recent study also found that one obstacle to obtaining Estonian citizenship is the spread of misinformation about the requirements for obtaining citizenship, along with advanced age and a lack of enough time and money.

Eldar is a stateless person who has already tried twice, unsuccessfully, to obtain Estonian citizenship, but has been hindered by past legal violations.

"It's been a while, but now that I've gotten my life together, I'd like to try one more time," he said. "But I don't actually know whether it will go through or not."

The main obstacle to obtaining Estonian citizenship, however, remains the required B1-level Estonian language proficiency, which many find difficult to achieve.

"Looking at the characteristics of the target group, only around 11 percent of them have attained higher education, which means the average learner is not a typical language course participant who is self-directed and self-motivated," Kaldur explained. "They're actually those who need a slightly different approach."

Not enough resources to meet demand

Based on the study results, the Integration Foundation plans to offer more language learning opportunities as well as expand its citizenship education efforts.

"We can see that interest is clearly much greater than our current ability to offer these services to people," acknowledged Integration Foundation director Dmitri Moskovtsev.

"There is also a resource issue — if current demand is greater than our ability to offer free Estonian language courses, then herein lies the debate: how do we obtain these resources?"

In order to determine the attitudes of stateless Estonian residents, the Institute of Baltic Studies conducted a broad-based questionnaire survey and focus group interviews.

A total of 1,991 people took part in the survey, and 28 residents participated in the seven focus groups. The study began in spring 2024, and data collection took place between October and December.

Click here to read more about the study.

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