Hanah Lahe can’t remember the fall of the iron curtain. Estonia’s youngest MP grew up surfing the web and consuming American television. Just nine years before her birth, it was all so different. Before borders reopened after the end of Soviet rule in 1991, Estonians rushed to stare at bananas, enthralled by the arrival of this new, exotic fruit.
“People were standing in line sometimes not even to buy, but just to have a look at them. Those who would buy them would not even eat them because it was such a big thing,” says Lahe, 24, recounting a story her grandmother told her. “When a plastic bag from another country that had a big brand name arrived, people would use it all the time.”
Freedom, after half a century of Soviet occupation, held no immediate assurances. Criminal gangs were known to wander around Tallinn in the turbulent years of the early 1990s. Foreign visitors were relatively few and far between. Finnish tourists, allowed to cross the Soviet Union’s sea border, recall seeing ramshackle houses and children in rags roaming the streets of Tallinn.
“Coming from that, the changes [today] are quite big,” says Lahe.
It has been nearly a year since Lahe, representing the liberal Reform party of the prime minister, Kaja Kallas, was elected an MP, and in that time she has emerged as one of the Baltic country’s most outspoken, energetic and interesting politicians.
She landed her first big victory within months of her election, at just 23, when she led the fight to legislate marriage equality. Estonia went on to become the first ex-Soviet country to legalise same-sex marriage, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that came into effect in January 2024.
“I still remember the day; the feelings, the applauding. It was a big day. It brought Estonia into the value room of Europe, western countries and other democratic countries that have had this for decades,” she says.
Lahe is now challenging other status-quos. The climate crisis remains a muted topic in Estonia, largely thanks to a deep-rooted car-loving culture at odds with Tallinn’s much-lauded free public transportation for residents. Cars remain something of a status symbol for new wealth and Estonia has the EU’s second-highest share of cars older than 20 years.
Lahe, a former youth delegate at Cop27 in Egypt and a founder of a circular economy support group in Estonia’s parliament, still sees herself as an activist taking on mainstream attitudes and “big egos”. She refuses to own a car, instead using public transport or walking.
“As a politician you can’t really talk about valuing the environment, or being an advocate for climate politics, if you in your personal life are not contributing at all to solving the crisis,” she says.
The MP notes that the Estonian business sector, with its abundance of startups and tech unicorns, is better equipped to push forward climate issues than policymakers. “They are way ahead of politics, which is weird,” she says.
Lahe and like-minded Estonians have their work cut out if the Baltic state is to make real progress on the climate. The country remains an outlier in the EU, with no climate-based laws, though the government – a coalition led by Reform with Estonia 200, a new liberal party, and the Social Democrats as junior partners – is drafting a climate bill that could be pushed through this year. A new car tax is to come into force in 2025, despite public opposition. The reforms could raise an extra €120m a year.
Despite her relative inexperience, Lahe understands the importance of communication. Like Kallas she understands social media, but while the prime minister posts behind-the-scenes footage of her day-to-day duties on Instagram, Lahe goes a step further, using social media as a tool to gain traction on protests.
In June, she set up a temporary garden space outside Estonia’s parliament in protest over the large number of empty “asphalt heat island” spaces devoted to parked cars. Her pop-up went viral and caught the wider public’s attention. The prime minister even dropped by. Fierce climate opponents couldn’t resist having a look.
“I was away from the parliament for an hour or two. I came back and I saw a politician from Isamaa, the opposition party, giving an interview in my park, which was really cool because people were trying to use this place. It’s needed,” she says.
The other crisis on Lahe’s mind – like all politicians in the Baltics – is Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“My generation’s heart aches for Ukraine, not because we lived through a war, but because we have the negative imprint of Russian invasion from our heritage. It matters to everyone who is Estonian how things are going in Ukraine,” says Lahe. She is clear: Ukrainian victory is the only path to securing Europe: “There really isn’t any other option.”
Domestically, battles lie ahead for Lahe, who as a young person in politics feels she has to prove herself “more than a regular politician”, particular since she chooses to go against many of her country’s cultural norms. A recent post on Instagram saw her dressed entirely in clothes found at local recycling centres; the most expensive item in her very chic outfit cost €30 (£25).
Radical voices at the top of Estonian politics remain a rarity. That, she says, has raised the pressure.
“People put a lot of hope on me to do something revolutionary, which I’m trying to do. Some older people put a lot of pressure, saying that younger people will solve the climate crisis and that they are too old to change something in their lives,” she says.
“It’s a completely unnecessary thing to say. But we shouldn’t blame them. Rather, we should find a way to cooperate together. No matter your age, you’re supposed to contribute.”
