Last words from departing IMF rep Basil Zavoico W hen Basil Zavoico came to Tallinn with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund on a cold, autumn day in 1991, things couldn't have looked worse. Over the next five years, though, Zavoico watched as Estonia and the other two Baltic states pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and turned their economies around. Zavoico, who became the permanent IMF representative in Tallinn in 1994, recently left the country for a new posting. He spoke to editor Michael Tarm from the IMF's city center office amid half-packed cardboard boxes and stacks of books and papers .
Many outside observers are fond of calling Estonia an economic miracle.
I would not agree. If you look up the word miracle in the dictionary, you'll find that a miracle is something that happens through divine intervention. My feeling is that whatever has happened in Estonia has had nothing to do with divine intervention, but rather with hard work and sound economic policies. Or to put it another way, there is nothing about the Estonian experience since independence that can't be explained. I would divide the question into two parts.