A view of Peetri Plats in Narva. Photo: Andrew Stuttaford.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t take much interest in the rights of Russians at home, but when it comes to the millions of Russians stranded in a sudden abroad after the collapse of the USSR, it’s a different matter. In a speech last year, he made clear that his idea of a wider “Russian World” (Russkiy Mir) came with a threat: “our country will . . . defend the rights of . . . our compatriots abroad, using the entire range of available means.”

The entire range of available means: after the Crimea came eastern Ukraine, and then? Nearly half a century of Soviet occupation left Estonia with a large Russian minority. This has shrunk since independence, but “Russian speakers” still account for around 28 percent of the population. About a half are Estonian citizens, with the balance roughly divided between Russian citizens and “non-citizens,” the latter a status (there’s something similar in neighboring Latvia) that Putin has described as “shameful.”

Most of the country’s Russian speakers are concentrated in either the capital, Tallinn, or in Ida-Virumaa, a region in the northeast. Only four percent of the inhabitants of Narva, that region’s principal city, just across a narrow river from Russia, are ethnic Estonians.

“Where you going next?” asks the Estonian bellhop as I check out of my hotel in Tallinn’s beguiling medieval center.

“Narva.”

A quiet “oh,” is the