Islam in Estonia

Estonia has one of the smallest Muslim communities in Europe. According to the census of 2011, the number of people who profess Islam was 1,508 in Estonia. There are a small number of practicing Muslims and there is only one mosque, the Turath Islamic Cultural Center.

History

The first Muslims in Estonia were mostly Sunni Tatars and Shia Azeri who had been released from the military service in the Russian Army after Estonia and Livonia had been conquered by the Russian Empire in 1721. The overwhelming majority of Muslims immigrated to Estonia during the Soviet occupation of Estonia between 1940 and 1991.

Since 1860, the Tatar community started showing activity, the centre being in the city of Narva. A Muslim congregation (Narva Muhamedi Kogudus) was registered there under the independent Republic of Estonia in 1928 and a second one (Tallinna Muhamedi Usuühing) in Tallinn in 1939. A house built for funds received as donations was converted into a mosque in Narva. In 1940, the Soviet authorities banned both congregations, and the buildings of the congregations were destroyed during World War II (in 1944).

Estonia

Estonia (ⁱ/ɛˈstoʊniə/;Estonian: Eesti [ˈeːsti]), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by Lake Peipus and Russia (338.6 km). Across the Baltic Sea lies Sweden in the west and Finland in the north. The territory of Estonia consists of a mainland and 2,222 islands and islets in the Baltic Sea, covering 45,339 km² (17,505 sq mi) of land, and is influenced by a humid continental climate.

Estonia is a democratic parliamentary republic divided into fifteen counties, with its capital and largest city being Tallinn. With a population of 1.3 million, it is one of the least-populous member states of the European Union, Eurozone, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, the OECD and the Schengen Area. Ethnic Estonians are Finnic people, and the official language, Estonian, is a Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish and the Sami languages, and distantly to Hungarian.

MS Estonia

MS Estonia, previously Viking Sally (1980–1990), Silja Star (−1991), and Wasa King (−1993), was a cruise ferry built in 1979/80 at the German shipyard Meyer Werft in Papenburg. The ship sank in 1994 in the Baltic Sea in one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. It is the deadliest European shipwreck disaster to have occurred in peacetime, costing 852 lives.

Coordinates: 59°23′0″N 21°40′0″E / 59.38333°N 21.66667°E / 59.38333; 21.66667

Construction

The ship was originally ordered from Meyer Werft by a Norwegian shipping company led by Parley Augustsen with intended traffic between Norway and Germany. At the last moment, the company withdrew their order and the contract went to Rederi Ab Sally, one of the partners in the Viking Line consortium (SF Line, another partner in Viking Line, had also been interested in the ship).

Originally the ship was conceived as a sister ship to Diana II, built in 1979 by the same shipyard for Rederi AB Slite, the third partner in Viking Line. However, when Sally took over the construction contract, the ship was lengthened from the original length of approximately 137 metres (449 ft) to approximately 155 metres (509 ft) and the superstructure of the ship was largely redesigned.

This Strange Engine

This Strange Engine is the ninth studio album by British rock band Marillion, released in 1997.

Release

It is the first of three albums in three consecutive years that Marillion released on a contract with Castle Communications, after being dropped by EMI Records following the relative lack of commercial success of Afraid of Sunlight in 1995; peaking at No. 16, Afraid of Sunlight had been the band's first studio album not to reach the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. Without the promotional efforts of a major label, This Strange Engine continued Marillion's decline in mainstream success; it reached No. 27 on the UK Albums Chart and stayed there for two weeks. The album sold significantly better in the Netherlands, home of one of the band's most loyal audiences, reaching #10.

Music

Most of the tracks are soft rock styled but relatively lengthy compositions.

The first single released from the album was "Man of a Thousand Faces". A music video was also released of this track. The second single from the album was "Eighty Days". Neither single received any mainstream radio airplay. For the first time, no singles from a Marillion album entered the UK Singles Chart.