Īsa 9.maija biogrāfija ar visām no tā izrietošajām sekām

Aleks,

Why did you live in the USA?
Why do you ‘currently’ live in Latvia?

“The russkies transferred far more russkies into Latvia than into Estonia or Lithuania. Tallin got rid of that disgusting russkie monument, and look what happened.”

Tallinn got rid of that monument from its CBD location, from everyday sight.
And yes, moved it to another site. Pity it wasn’t melted down.

Why do you ‘currently’ live in Latvia?

Why all the questions? What are you trying to prove?  I’m a citizen of Latvia, if you must know, whose (Russian) family has lived in Latgale for generations. Perhaps, you’ve heard of Audriņi? My great-grandparents and their parents are all buried at the village cemetery. 

Tallinn got rid of that monument from its CBD location, from everyday sight.

Not sure what you mean by CBD. It was located at a trolley bus stop (hardly an appropriate place for the monument). Now it’s moved to a military cemetery. And it isn’t even far from the center.

Aleksejs,

” I’m a citizen of Latvia, if you must know, whose (Russian) family has lived in Latgale for generations. Perhaps, you’ve heard of Audriņi? My great-grandparents and their parents are all buried at the village cemetery. “

My generations of forebears are buried somewhere there too.
I’m not a ctizen of Latvia.
(When’s the dual passport going to come into existance?)
I live in Australia.

Thank you ruSSkies, for ‘liberating’ our remaining family to Australia ... much better than being ‘liberated’ to Siberia. Thank you so much ... my utter heartfelt warmth to you (all 40+deg C of it).
I’m so sorry that all the invitations we received from your friends in the Krimeline, to return to Latvia, were unanswered.

“Upon the changing international and domestic situation, on 24 December 1989 the Congress of People’s Deputies of the Soviet Union declared the secret protocols of the pact to be null and void as of the moment of their signing.”
A bit too late, mate. 50 years too late!
But I did feel joyous rapture when I first read that ... I almost swooned ... ‘mother mother I’m coming home’

Meanwhile, back at the ranch .....................................

Now it’s time for me to take a shower to wash away all this sarcasm. This conversation was generally pleasant. Until your last post, Maris. Good luck with all of that.

marisr, since you are floating questions - why don’t you have Latvian citizenship?  It was offered to people with Latvian citizen parents for several years after Latvia regained independence.  And a follow-up question: why do you think the Latvian government should give it to you now if you didn’t get it then?

By the way, at one rather florid point in grammar school - I’m guessing about seventh grade or so - I started dotting the “i” in my first name with a little heart.  That lasted only a few weeks, as I recall.  The “SS” in the way you spell ruSSian reminded me of that phase.

I don’t know, Anita. I think intentionally misspelling the same word over and over is a great way to persuade people to come over to your point of view.  I was for Obama, but then I saw grown men writing his name wrong on purpose, and that tipped the scales.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ6_Ey_MJV4
Perhaps Nigen Farage speaks also for democracy in Latvia. Here, too, the political center, led by a fake ‘reformist’ and ex-President Valdis Zatlers, whose ‘reform’ is so REAL that with the help of the Latvian media he gets to keep a luxury Audi while many Latvian children suffer of malnutrition, has collapsed and left standing the right and left wings. As I have written before, democracy in Latvia is the fake politicians’ utopian dream, while it is the nightmore of the people of Latvia. I equate the flight of democracy with deforestation and the ever increasing scalping of the surface of our planet by corporatism (another ultra-fake of democracy), thus, not surprisingly, the ‘democratic’ expression of the current government was to shoot the female bear Made and castrate two younger male bears.

Aleksejs et al.,
“Why all the questions? What are you trying to prove?  I’m a citizen of Latvia, if you must know, whose (Russian) family has lived in Latgale for generations. Perhaps, you’ve heard of Audriņi? My great-grandparents and their parents are all buried at the village cemetery”

Did you not mention once that one brach of your family arrived in Latvia with the occupiers.?

Visu labu,

Did you not mention once that one brach of your family arrived in Latvia with the occupiers.?

Nope. I did not.

Show and tell at a Latvian kindergarten for the Legionnaire Day. No wonder it made the Russian news. Heck, even during the occupation, they never dragged weapons into schools.

Aleksejs et al.,
“Nope. I did not”.

Sorry , I must have been mistaken.  I could have sworn it was somebody who arrived in 1945.  The description was interesting., of somebody who was involved in tracking down something like the russians who had been in the Vlasov Army.

Visu labu,

Aleksejs,

It seems to me that we are both relatively reasonable individuals and that our differing attitudes are things that we can live with.

I, by no means, blame most of Latvia’s ills on ethnic Russians and Russia. But all parties will need to act maturely if progress is to be made. This is difficult b/c a single individual, PR stunt can cause harm.

Re Latvia’s economic issues. I think that it is great that you are looking back at Latvia’s economic history. The recent economic situation, however, is due to all kinds of factors that did not exist in the 1930’s. Latvian stability is tied to European stability. The ease by which people can move back an forth, although minor in some respects, can result in a tremendous drain to the Latvian economy. Global forces and companies play a larger and larger role and have an impact of smaller economies.

I am not an economist, but remember, most of Europe is in trouble. Latvia isn’t in the worst shape & certainly not at the top.

Finally, I will refer back to my small town of Marfa - pop. less than 2,000. As you know, there is a huge debate in the US, should decisions be made at a federal level of the local level. Well, having lived in this town for almost 7 yrs., I have NO faith in govt at the local level. Likewise, you will not have the number of exceptional economists, etc. in Latvia b/c it is small, b/c the education is more ltd. etc. So (this might seem blasphemous to some) but I believe that effective governance in many areas will require assistance from experts that are outside of Latvia. This is just a feeling that I have. One can only expect so much.

Vilis

Anita
“marisr, since you are floating questions - why don’t you have Latvian citizenship?  It was offered to people with Latvian citizen parents for several years after Latvia regained independence.  And a follow-up question: why do you think the Latvian government should give it to you now if you didn’t get it then?”

During 1987 -> 1996 I was living in the backwoods of Queensland. 1991 ->96 mainly around Rockhampton and Bundaberg.
I simply didn’t know about it.
And if did, I was too broke to have done anything anyway.

I don’t know, but I think many Latvians world wide didn’t know about it. A couple of other people (USA))  in the forum, said they too didn’t know about it.
How many of us had email, internet (almost instantaneous international access) in those days?

This is 2012; I live 38k out of Perth on acreage, and still can’t get full ADSL. It took 5 years of waiting just to get ADSL2.

I also have no idea of the implications of dual citizenship ... If I had stayed USA for another couple of months I could have got OZ/USA dual citizenship. My partner at the time did get it ... so I find the non-recognition by OZ govt somewhat puzzling (maybe the rules have since changed).
And a couple of Latvians I know here also got their dual citizenship at the time. It’s never bothered them, so far.

I went to Latvia with scans of my mother’s original passport ... but never took the matter any further.

The dual citizenship issue for Latvia has to do with how to legally bar Russians from obtaining dual Russian-Latvian citizenship.