In view of the ongoing protests in Russia regarding the election fraud, I am curious if it is having any affect on Latvia’s Russians?
You who live there, Elizabete, Peter, Aleks and others, tell us if you are seeing any signs of sympathy toward the protest movement there?

Sveika, Ārija!

As I mentioned in another thread, I now live in Roja civil parish, a part of the country where there are very few russophones… this is in stark contrast to Daugavpils, where I lived for many years. Only 11 people in the entire novads signed the petition in favor of amending the constitution to make Russian co-official, for example (in Daugavpils, 27 857 citizens signed in the city alone… those dreaming of a russenfreies area might try Nīca, though, where not a single person in the municipality signed).

So I can’t really give you an impression from the street (well, neither is there a street… just the old gravel road and the Kolka highway). According to the radio, a mere 35 people turned out in Riga to express support for the protestors in Russia. Far more turned out in London—100 on Friday and 200 on Saturday, according to the BBC.

For not a few Latvian Russians, Russia is a very foreign country indeed. I suspect that most of the more liberal Russians are more concerned about Latvian politics (and the currently growing ethnic divide). For others, the events in Russia put them in an uncomfortable spot—Harmony Center has an agreement with Putin’s party, after all. Ushakov has said elections abroad are none of his business and won’t comment—this despite the fact that he was in Moscow at election time. There are also many Russians who live in Russian media space. If you look at comments in the Russian-language version of Delfi, many swallow Putin’s propaganda whole (it’s all Hillary’s fault).

As to those here who hold Russian citizenship and voted—they tend to be far more pro-Putin than Russians in Russia, voting for the regime in numbers comparable to those living under tyrannies in the northern Caucasus.

Visu labu,
/P

LOL!  on Putin’s propoganda about being Hillary’s fault!!  Jeez…  I saw the protests on my national news last night!  Good for them!!!  I guess Putin isn’t as powerful as he had hoped he was!!

I hear that a lot of my neighbors have Russian visas—just in case. From what I know, they also get most of their foreign news from Russian television. The Latvian news service is nearly worthless propaganda pap. I get my news from the internet and cross checking many of the stories.. In any case, the Russian visas in Latvian hands means that there are many preparing to run East, not West when NATO’s provocations have run their course. No illusions here that Russia is somehow a weak power or a power that needs to be feared at this time. It is time for Latvians living in the West to stop identifying Russia with the Soviet Union, which so many are so obviously doing.

Cut back on the John’s-milk, Jaņdž.

/P

Peter, it is interesting that the site on Johns Grass has over 23,000 clicks. It is one most frequently visited at LOL In short, there are not as many romanized Latvians in Latvia as you presume. Indeed, the Johns Festival is likely to be closer to Eastern Orthodox rites in the sense that they may share the same ancient roots. Perhaps you should travel around Latvia more, though it will not compensate for not being born here, as you seem to hold this against those who have come here from Russia, not America.

jandžs - 11 December 2011 11:43 AM

I hear that a lot of my neighbors have Russian visas—just in case. From what I know, they also get most of their foreign news from Russian television. The Latvian news service is nearly worthless propaganda pap. I get my news from the internet and cross checking many of the stories.. In any case, the Russian visas in Latvian hands means that there are many preparing to run East, not West when NATO’s provocations have run their course. No illusions here that Russia is somehow a weak power or a power that needs to be feared at this time. It is time for Latvians living in the West to stop identifying Russia with the Soviet Union, which so many are so obviously doing.

re bold - And why not??  Doesn’t seem they (Russia/Soviets) have changed their tactics on stuffing ballots at election time!!!

And why not?
Because to equate Russians with Soviets is transparent prejudice and has little or no sense of history.

Some Latvians, like Rasnačs of VL may also make that kind of equalization, but then VL is the party that got the issue inflamed to the point where its nose has to sniff its own doo-doo. In this case John Urbanovichs has the better of the argument, when he says that though 70% of those voting in the Referendum may vote AGAINST (accepting Russian as a 2nd language), 30% may vote FOR. This is why I propose that the Referendum have a THIRD BOX to choose, for those who wish with easy conscience to vote FOR, but which box will also indicate that the Referendum outcome is non-binding one. This is a better way to discover what the Latvian people really think, than polarizing the issue. The ultimate cause of the linquistic conflict is not one of ethnic conflict, but the result of (as at another topic site), pursuing Debt Slavery as the end game of Latvian economic policy.

In any case, the Russian visas in Latvian hands means that there are many preparing to run East, not West when NATO’s provocations have run their course.

Yes, Russian visas can be picked up at the kiosk with my prepaid cell phone minutes and the tide of emigration has been trending east. Damn NATO and their provocations !

I second Peteris’ recommendation. Time to cut back on the herbage.

As I have written elsewhere, the Latvians know their history no further back than perhaps 1905, anything else before this time, the times under the Russian tsars, and the influence of the Orthodox Church goes right bye the Latvian mind’s eye and romanizes their mindset into burnt toast in a made-in-the-West micro oven.

It should be worth while, at the very least, for Latvians to go back into their history to Tsar Alexander II (The Liberator), 1855-1881, and take Russian not Western scholarship to heart. The Tsar’s reforms shaped Russia’s and Latvia’s history all the way from the time they were implemented (1861) to 1905 and 1917, and all the years and events that so disastrously shaped Russia’s own and Latvia’s history. The Latvians should also become more understanding about the effects of the so-called Industrial Revolution in the West, by reading something of the destruction that monetizing natural economies accomplished. One worth while book as to the same time period in England is Karl Polanyi’s “The Great Transformation”.

As for a direct experience of the Latvian experience, one need only remember that all those fotographs of Latvians fleeing West shows them in horse drawn wagons with a cow or two tied by rope to same. Until 1945, Latvia is a country running on horse power. The hold of the ship that left Ventspils for Gdansk (Danzig), was filled with these unfortunate animals from another culture, all of which no doubt ended up in the slaughter house. One of my neighbors’, born in Siberia, grandfather was once a wealthy (turīgs) man who owned a farm that raised horses in Abrene. When I met his father after coming to the region where I now live, he was one of the few men in my area who still had a horse and a horse-drawn wagon. The horse died with the man.

Thus, the pure bull presumed as material worthy of discussion by any number of badly informed and poorly read pseudo-historians is what it cleasrly is—misinformation favored by a right-wing mindset. Perhaps such a mindset can be excused by the fact that the Latvian countrypeople—like the peasants in Russia—were of the more or less independent peasant communes held together by the Orthodox Church, just like in Latvia the community was held together by the Johns, who most likely also were of Orthodox origin. While the justly famous song book “Lihgo” shows what the Latvian John (priest) looked like in 1874, it is interesting that a post-Soviet Latvia is not returning to its cultural origins, but is entertaining the idea that it should romanize itself by turning ever more West in all things that have proven themselves a failure in the West. The monster glass house that cost 130 million is. unfortunately, hailed as a cultural show piece. A long time ago, in Boston, when the John Hancock building was encased in glass panels, a great many of them fell out. Should such a miracle repeat itself in Riga!

Before this thread goes in another direction, I want to thank Peteris for his observations and I am very encouraged to read that for the most part Russian speakers in Latvia consider the goings on in Russia not their concern.  Russia to them is a foreign country.  They have their own concerns in Latvia right now, like the banking crisis. 
Actually, I was almost sure this would be the case when I posed the question.  Despite Ambersun using the Russian Latvian cab driver I wrote about over a year ago as an example whenever she poked fun of Russian speaking Latvians, I now see a parallel between them and us in the Diaspora.  Just because the Russians who are citizens of Latvia prefer to speak Russian in their homes and among their friends does not mean they are disloyal citizens of Latvia.  We in the Diaspora spoke Latvian in our homes and among our friends, but we valued our US citizenship and used English outside the home.
Just from the description of Peteris’ new home town, I picture a micro-Latvia where Russian is seldom heard.  I am sure there are many such towns throughout Latvia.  The fear that some of us held of Latvia losing its soul and ceding our land to Russia is just not happening.  If Riga is going to remain a cosmopolitan European city, we have to allow for language diversity.
Thanks Peteri for your response and others for your comments.  It may be “Hillary’s fault” to those die hards in Russia who see nothing wrong with the musical chairs Putin and Medvedev are playing, but the Latvian Russians no longer buy into that propoganda.

Labvakar, Ārija!

I wouldn’t go that far with regard to a few of your remarks—not by any means. I used the phrase “not a few” (which phrase I employ so often because of Ambersun’s reaction to it in another context). I think a lot of Latvia’s Russians do buy into Putin’s propaganda—the Delfi site I mention is a Latvian Russian site, not a Russian site. One can’t judge by Internet comments, of course, but studies have also shown that many ethnic Russians in Latvia do indeed identify with Russia more than they do with Latvia. I’m also underscoring more liberal Russians—but how many fall into that category (not many ethnic Latvians do, either; a “Western orientation” is often present merely because it’s in the opposite direction of Russia… many ethnic Latvians wouldn’t mind seeing a “strong hand” here, as long as that hand is Latvian).

“Language diversity” is one thing—in the 1920s, when Latvia really was diverse, with German, Yiddish, Polish, and other languages in competition, and lettophones formed a considerable majority, Latvia could afford to be linguistically liberal. Nowadays, it is mostly a question of Russian vs. Latvian, and the capital probably contains more people who speak Russian (as a first and second language) than Latvian (just as the entire country did until not long ago). Large languages eat little languages unless protections are in place.

Just because the Russians who are citizens of Latvia prefer to speak Russian in their homes and among their friends does not mean they are disloyal citizens of Latvia.  We in the Diaspora spoke Latvian in our homes and among our friends, but we valued our US citizenship and used English outside the home.

I don’t have any time now—I’m buried in work—but that’s not comparable, as I’m sure you realize. Putting aside the fact that Latvia never occupied the US or attempted to latvianize it, English in the US doesn’t need protection. It’s more like Russian in most of the former USSR—a hegemonic and linguicidal tongue. Yes, of course, speaking Russian at home does not mean one is disloyal—but as Latvians in the States (where there is no official language), we didn’t demand official status for the language, either. We all learned English, and we didn’t try to use Latvian with our employees or at the corner store. We couldn’t, of course—almost no one else spoke Latvian. And so on, and so on… there are many places on earth where different languages meet, not rarely both enriching each other and clashing. But small languages are in a different league. This is acute in places like Catalonia, but again—the parallels come with vast differences (Catalonia is not a nation-state [yet], Catalan was the language of prestige, etc.).

The current climate is deteriorating fast. The radicals are partly to blame, both among lettophones and russophones. So is the tolerance of the mainstream for such voices. So is the failure to build a decent state. There are too many factors to list.

Like almost every Latvian I know, I will go vote against making Russian co-official. I think SC showed its true colors—there are some decent folks in SC, but SC is opposed to the Latvia I want to see. VL did a lot of damage with its call for a referendum, but this successful signature drive by those who want a Ruslatviya has done more damage to this society than anything.

Here is an insightful article by the head of the medical doctors’ association.

The exclusion of SC from the coalition infuriated many russophones and made many feel that they have never been taken seriously by this Republic, and will always be excluded. Agree or disagree (and I personally did not and definitely do not want to see SC in a government)—that is how many russophones feel. There’s raw emotion in it, after years of losing ground to Latvian(s). Also, I actually know more than one ethnic Latvian who cried when SC didn’t get in, believe it or not.

I think we can expect a further worsening of inter-ethnic relations, and I think it is very dangerous—particularly at a time of continued economic crisis (another wave is likely to overtake the supposed recovery).

Visu gaišu,
/P

You just burst my balloon. Is it really so difficult for the two sides to see a common good for Latvia? 
I guess the russophones who see Russia as a foreign country and do not buy into Putin’s propoganda are just a select few intelligent folk and not the norm.  How sad.
Still, I am going to be optimistic in that there are now people all over Russia who have had it with “business as usual” and have let their feelings be known.  In time they will be the majority and their leaders will have to heed to their voice. The present scenario hasn’t even played out yet.  That guy who owns the NJ Nets or the young attorney blogger could replace Putin in March. Highly unlikely, but change is surely coming to Russia which has to have an affect on the russophones in Latvia who still cling to the old empire concept.
And BTW, I do recognize that my analogy about the language issue among russophones in Latvia and Diaspora Latvians is not a fair comparison.  You are right that Latvians did not occupy any of their host countries so it is a dumb comparison.

Sveiki!

Pēteris wrote, „I think SC showed its true colors—there are some decent folks in SC, but SC is opposed to the Latvia I want to see. ”

It would probably be good to keep in mind who from SC *opposes* the language referendum:

http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/neka-personiga-sc-vadosie-deputati-nostajas-pret-usakovu-referenduma-par-krievu-valodu-nepiedalisies.d?id=41973940

I, of course, don’t take Urbanovičs seriously (much less Ušakovs, who dug his own grave and probably is history).  However, Pimenovs came out at the very beginning and refused to endorse it.  Aside from Andrejs Klementjevs, who for the last five years has been a highly regarded member of Saeima’s Prezidijis by the Latvian parties, the article also mentions Tutins, Ādamsons and Cilvēvičs.  No doubt many of us have our own idiosyncratic reactions to those last 3 names.  Not mentioned is Dolgopolovs, who also at the very outset refused to endorse the language referendum.  I’m quite sure that many other elected deputies from SC will follow suit in the coming weeks and flee the sinking ship prior to the actual referendum. 

In light of the fractures in the SC behemoth (which includes *many* parties), it’s hard not to wonder whether the western Latvian on the „Sveiks” Latvian language forum correctly read the signs.  In other words, his take: the actual purpose of Zatlers’ highly upsetting call in late September for creating a government coalition that included SC might have been to so disturb SC’s equilibrium that it fell apart.  As a result, the deputies that Latvians could actually work with would be pried away.  Going forward, we’ll see whether this tactic worked.

Visu labu,

E.

PS – Ārija, I live in the States, not in LV.  I just have an unnaturally strong interest that against all the odds LV manages to pull it together and survive, just as Estonia and Lithuania -at least from a distance- seem quite likely to do.  Though there’s a long way to go, to my mind it’s looking better now than it has in a long, long time. : ) (Ummm….. there is however the economy, plus demographics, and the lack of a cohesive education policy and, and, and ......)

Sveika, vēlreiz!

Ārija, I think people within the communities are quite diverse, but certain issues can be quite polarizing. Again I must be brief, but here are a few scattered things in reaction to your response. Many ethnic Latvians have little love for this state. Most love this country, but faith in its institutions is woefully low. The institutions obviously do not deserve much love, either. It is hard to tell the principle apart from how it works in practice if you must smell the practice and feel it on your back. You can say “democracy stinks,” or you can say “this democracy stinks,” or “this democracy stinks because __” and so on, in different permutations.

Russia stinks a lot more than Latvia does (see this fresh New Yorker piece for some insight… I would recommend that Jaņdžs and Ligita read it, too; no, the “new” Russia is not the USSR—but it is a hellish empire). One can smell its stink over here. Latvia’s stench, however, is more potent locally, even if Russia’s is far worse. (Lest anybody assail me for “anti-Latvianism”—I deeply love many of the fragrances here… then again, there’s much I enjoy about Russia, too).

Latvia has some of the same problems Russia does, in a far lesser degree. Many here, Latvian or Russian or Udmurt, do not believe in democracy. What’s mentioned in the New Yorker article about Russia:

For many Russians, the experience of the nineties under Yeltsin, with its lawlessness, economic instability, and wild privatization, was so disorienting, so disappointing, that they forgot about the new freedoms they had gained and came to refer to the period not as demokratiya but as dermokratiya (“shitocracy”).

...is, again to a lesser degree, how many experienced the ‘Nineties here.

One big difference is that we regained our country in a more palpable fashion. Russia went from being an empire to being under Bolshevik rule, with a very brief, hopeless attempt at normalcy in between. Its “federation” remains imperial in many ways—anathema to most Russian nationalists, who might enjoy ruling subject peoples, but not sharing power with them.

Latvians have made other tangible gains—the tables were turned linguistically. Property was returned. Latvians have ruled the country. The old symbols, which mean something to most Latvians (as I suspect the Russian symbols did not [the flag even seemed to confuse many at first]... note, for instance, Russia’s anthem problem, solved by a return to the Soviet melody) were restored. This even extends to the Russian equivalent for kungs—господин; whilst Letts mostly enjoyed returning to that from biedrs, having proudly become lords in our own house as once before, as the song demanded, the Russian word was rejected by such as Solzhenitsyn, to whom the word stank of… what lords stink of.

In Latvia, patriotism is usually quite sentimental and ethnocentric—it is about things (ethnically) Latvian, and many Russians here can’t relate. Nor do most Letts do much to include them, when not deliberately excluding them.

Ambersun keeps going on about the “Soviet-deformed.” Though life under the Soviets (N.B.—there were a lot of Latvian Communists who assisted in the deformation) certainly did bring deformities, Latvia’s democracy did not survive the first time, either—not because of the occupation or Russians, but because of… Latvians, in particular Ulmanis. Reading old newspapers as part of her research, my Beloved recently remarked that one tends to think that things were better in the old days… but one finds the same, sadly familiar things.

I wouldn’t idealize the protestors in Russia. Re Alexei Navalny, the blogger the New York Times called “the man most responsible” for the events, is not exactly a saint:

Five years ago, he quit the liberal party Yabloko, frustrated with the liberals’ infighting and isolation from mainstream Russian opinion. Liberals, meanwhile, have deep reservations about him, because he espouses Russian nationalist views. He has appeared as a speaker alongside neo-Nazis and skinheads, and once starred in a video that compares dark-skinned Caucasus militants to cockroaches. While cockroaches can be killed with a slipper, he says that in the case of humans, “I recommend a pistol.”

Though there were definitely wonderful people among the demonstrators, part of the reason these demonstrations are so well-attended is that the Communist Party is the most significant part of the “legal” opposition to Putin. Ultra-nationalists were also everywhere in evidence. One shouldn’t be naïve about movements like this—consider Egypt’s “Spring,” and where it is likely to lead.

[To be cont’d.]

[cont’d.]

Though things in Latvia have been infinitely more civilized and democratic than in Russia, the faint echo I am pointing to is that yes, most here (including many russophones) demanded freedom during the Awakening. Freedom is something we need like we need air—but it means different things to different people. The nuances are innumerable. I have met many Latvians who are apparently deeply democratic in their convictions, but who would never extend that freedom to gays or blacks…. or, in some instances, Russians. And how many people demonstrating for a free Latvia really wanted to see the clock turned back not to 1933 but 1939?

Is it really so difficult for the two sides to see a common good for Latvia? Yes, it is. Politicians exacerbate the divide, but we do tend to take different positions based on historical experience and language. Add just plain bigotry and a lack of self-esteem—on both sides. There is a lot of common ground—hence we get on so well when we stay away from that crevasse—but we react viscerally to certain things.

Many have had it with “business as usual” in Russia, yes. But there are so many factors involved in the response and the sentiments, and the Russian-language media in Latvia didn’t cover the protests much. Час seemed far more concerned with marking the anniversary of the end of the USSR, tinged with a mournful tone. How many people get most of their news from Russian state TV? Why wouldn’t they buy Lt. Col. Putin’s prop? Like Jaņdžs after too much John’s-milk, they like to pretend that Russia really is healthy and powerful. It’s rather more impressive than watching a few dinky Latvian military vehicles drive by whilst people who call them okupanti honor a flag that may not be theirs—after all, when Russians do wave the Latvian flag, Raivis Dzintars is offended.

I’m painting with a broad brush, generalizing, and oversimplifying, but I’ve been up translating for I don’t know how many days with little sleep in these insufferable winter nights. My main point is that much of the emotion isn’t rational. It rarely is in such circumstances, even in societies with a far more placid history and deeper civic traditions. If Latvia was a success, which it is not, these things wouldn’t come to the fore in such a way.

I do not get why Frank Gordon, in the article Ambersun posted, uses īpašs gadījums! with such relish when talking about Finland, India and Switzerland. How is Latvia not an īpašs gadījums? It is one, and always has been—the fact that Russian and German could be spoken in parliament when we achieved independence was called “the eighth wonder of the world” by one wit, and we (in the trimda!) used to be proud of Latvia’s multiculturalism. Daugavpils has never been an especially “Latvian” city—he makes a grave factual error about the US that undermines his first refutation, of Kabanov’s argument… but even if he wasn’t wrong and the appearance of Spanish were a tīri praktiska padarīšana—well, the tīri praktiska padarīšana is rarely seen even in Dvinsk. I certainly recognize how the invocations he attempts to refute are īpaši gadījumi, and I will go vote against an amendment… but I am rather sick of shallow arguments, especially misleading ones. Gordon also neglects to mention that Israel, of which he is a resident (and I would guess a citizen) is also an īpašs gadījums! Hebrew and Arabic are co-official. As to Switzerland—its constitution was among the models for ours, and its multiculturalism inspired Rainis, who was a strong advocate of minority schools.

Now I’ve run at the mouth and really must plunge into translation again, but I thought I’d throw some stuff out into my old hangout, as all of this seethes around me despite my paying little attention to such matters of late.

Visu gaišu,
/P