Latvians Online celebrates its 10th anniversary today. Looking back on the past decade online the Latvians Online team—Andris Straumanis, Arnis Gross and Daina Gross—started reminiscing. Ten years is a long time for a website—in human years, half a generation. Much to ponder.

Andris: I vaguely recall a conversation with my Latvians Online partners some years ago that focused on a fundamental question: How long do we plan to keep doing this? Perhaps we all forgot about that little talk, because we are still here, still doing this.

“This” is publishing a website for Latvians around the world, telling both the good and the not-so-good stories of the diaspora and the homeland—and the relationship between the two. When we began10 years ago (and even longer ago, if we remember that before Latvians Online we ran separate websites), the Latvian Internet was still young. During the past decade, we have been joined by many more voices, large and small. For me, it has been fascinating to watch that growth.

At the same time, that growth has presented us with challenges. How do we maintain a clear identity of who we are and what we want to accomplish? It is a question that has no clear answer, much like trying to define one’s Latvian identity outside of the confines of the homeland. We have expanded our offerings and our collaborators, we have played with new technologies, we have succeeded in some endeavors and have felt disappointment in others.

Through these 10 years, our community of readers has sustained us. You have welcomed us into your virtual homes, given us ideas for stories and projects, lent support through donations, and at times aimed well-deserved criticism our way.

Working on Latvians Online for me has meant connecting with our global community in myriad ways. Owing to the time differences between Latvia, the United States and Australia—to name just a few of the countries that we cover—it also has meant a loss of sleep. Covering the recent parliamentary election is just one example. I was awake for 24 hours straight, speaking to Latvian polling stations around the world and writing updates for the website.

Why? Because that is what we have done for the past decade. That is why we are still here.

Arnis:  What a great opportunity—to tinker with the latest Internet technologies and be able to apply them for the good of the Latvian worldwide community. Latvians Online is testament to what can be done when two online teams located on each side of the globe join forces to raise the level even further. It has been especially gratifying to see how our wide range of online services have helped old friends and relatives reconnect and how people have come out of the woodwork to rediscover their Latvian roots.

Daina: Latvians Online has always been a labour of love. Back in 2000 being Latvian but living in Australia—on the other side of the world from Latvia, my husband Arnis and I always felt the Internet could be a great way for Latvians worldwide to connect and be informed about their homeland. So teaming up with Andris Straumanis on the other side of the world seemed a good start to this process. He was also Latvian, had a website for Latvians living in America with a similar purpose, and we didn’t know him, apart from the fact that he had a similar interest to us—“Latvianness” and the Internet. This could appear to be a challenge—teaming up with like-minded people you “meet” via the internet can prove to be a risk but in this case it was the beginning of a joint project that has grown and helped us grow in the process.

Looking back on these past ten years it has been a pleasure to help people—in terms of directing them to sites to find information, helping them find long-lost friends and relatives via our forums, informing them of events, news, current affairs, reviewing products. A recent addition, the Education Section, has truly been worthwhile as teachers of Latvian worldwide have been able to benefit from it, judging by the feedback in the comments sections following the articles.

We’d like to thank all of our readers who have responded to our surveys over the years. They have always reaffirmed that we were on the right track and constructive suggestions how to improve our site have also been appreciated. We hope to continue in this vein, continually changing elements, adding new sections, archiving those that haven’t proven to be as popular, and always ready to embrace new technology as it appears on the horizon.

Thank you to all our readers and authors and those who have donated money to support our cause and please don’t forget you can always e-mail us to give us your feedback on our site!

Interviews about our 10th anniversary can also be seen here:

Diena
Laikraksts Latvietis

Latvia’s greatest international concern currently is its position and perception in the global arena. Russia, full well realizing this, has launched a malicious propaganda campaign against the current Latvian government headed by Vienotība (Unity) and Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis.

Moscow’s campaign to try to oust Latvian Foreign Minister Ģirts Valdis Kristovskis from office is one of the most overt and recent examples of this. Another recent example is the introduction by the Russian delegation to the United Nations of a resolution condemning the so-called glorification of Nazism and the dismantling of World War II monuments (read: monuments glorifying Joseph Stalin and the 50-year Soviet occupation of the Baltic republics). 

Russia’s and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s disinformation campaign (with the help of the Russian parties in Latvia—Harmony Centre and For Human Rights in a United Latvia—and their Latvian allies, the oligarchs Ainārs Šlesers, Andris Šķēle and Aivars Lembergs) is intended to quash Latvia’s independence and progress, not to mention to further dilute and damage the Latvian language and Latvia’s unique cultural identity. 

Throughout their propaganda, the Russians are using inflammatory catchwords like Nazi, Hitler, fascist and russophobe. These words are infamous, “politically incorrect” and catch the attention of most everyone. It is a cheap trick, and hopefully intelligent and well-informed people will not buy into it. Hopefully the European Union, UN, the NATO defense alliance and the United States “get it,” as they say, because the Kremlin-controlled Russian media are a dangerous cocktail of propaganda, chauvinism and xenophobia.

Let’s step back and put things into perspective. Stalin’s Russian bolsheviks, communists and terrorists (the NKVD and, later, the KGB) were just as bad, if not worse, than Adolph Hitler and his Nazis. Stalin himself was a narcissistic and paranoid egoist, who ultimately killed many more people than Hitler, and, interestingly enough, Putin is currently trying to resurrect and improve Stalin’s reputation in Russia. Putin’s government sponsored Russian history textbooks that glorify Stalin. Many journalists have written of Putin’s admiration of Stalin and compared the two. Some of those journalists were assassinated. The Russian law enacted by Putin whereby anyone equating Hitler with Stalin can be prosecuted is of great significance to the topic at hand.

In contrast to the current propaganda coming out of the Kremlin, it is also important to consider catchwords such as Stalin, KGB, Siberia, deportation, gulag, famine and Great Purge. Stalin’s Russian terrorists ultimately occupied Latvia for 50 years! They sent thousands upon thousands of Latvians to their deaths in Siberian concentration camps. They virtually outlawed the Latvian language and religion. The NKVD and KGB forced Latvians to spy on each other. They flooded Latvia with ethnic Russians in an attempt to dilute and ultimately dissolve Latvia. During Stalin’s reign and the Soviet era, Latvia of the three Baltic republics was deliberately the most saturated with ethnic Russians. Latvia is still struggling with the consequences today.

Now the Russians accuse us of being anti-Russian. Of course, it is only natural that we are now wary of Russia’s motives in Latvia, and wish to protect our language, cultural identity and independence. Unfortunately, Russia will not admit to the basic historical fact of its 50-year occupation of Latvia, and that of many other countries. Stalin’s terrors unleashed on Latvia were also experienced by many other countries and ethnic groups including the Estonians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Poles, Romanians, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meshketian Turks, Bulgarians, Greeks, Koreans, kulaks and people of Jewish descent. The Ukrainian Holodomor famine and genocide (at least 3 million and possibly up to 10 million people starved to death) and the execution of Polish prisoners of war known as the Katyn Massacre (22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals were killed) are of particular note because of the staggering number of people who died and perished as a result of Stalin’s mandates during these cataclysmic and inhumane horrors. Stalin was a mass murderer and a butcher, and Putin is his admirer.

As modern day public relations campaigns go, the Russians have done well on a very base level, but they did not succeed in ousting Latvian Foreign Minister Kristovskis. Let’s hope Europe and the rest of the world realize what Russia is really up to. Why should Putin express concerns about the civil and human rights of ethnic Russians in Latvia, when he ignores the rights of most Russians, and causes many to suffer, in his own Russia? It is hypocrisy at its worst.

What about the human rights of the 52 journalists murdered in Russia since 1992? Remember the November 2006 deadly poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in a London restaurant?Litvinenko was a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a fierce critic of Putin. Did Russia consider the civil and human rights of former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and his “Other Russia” supporters when they participated in an authorized anti-Putin rally in Moscow in November 2007, a week before parliamentary elections? No, Kasparov was arrested and imprisoned for five days. Other demonstrators at the Moscow rally were also arrested. In St. Petersburg, at a demonstration also organized by Kasparov, 200 people were arrested as they chanted “Russia without Putin.” For these and many other transgressions by Putin’s regime against the Russian people, it is disingenuous and hypocritical of Moscow to now accuse Latvia of violating the human rights of ethnic Russians in Latvia. The overall quality of life of ethnic Russians living in Latvia is better than that of most Russians living in Russia.

It is currently popular and important throughout the world to be politically correct. Putin’s propaganda against Latvia guises itself in a cloak of civil rights and political correctness in an attempt to manipulate the international community against Latvia. He plays the political correctness card masterfully (but hypocritically). Personally, I would like to believe that the leaders in Europe, the U.S. and other countries are wise enough to see through Moscow’s cloak of propaganda and hypocrisy. 

The irony of the Kremlin’s deliberately provocative use of the words fascist and Nazi to slander patriotic Latvians is that the largest country in the world today where the government engages in fascism is Putin’s own Russia.

(Update 19 NOV 2010: The first paragraph has been modified for clarity.)