Even before Olympics, Latvia creates buzz

Andris Straumanis | 

With all the buzz in Salt Lake City these days about Team Latvia, who needs a medal in the Winter Olympics? Come Friday evening, Feb. 8, that buzz may just turn into a roar as Latvians across the United States watch the opening ceremony on the NBC television network.

If the indications from Salt Lake City are true, the national TV audience finally will get to see the Latvian team march into Olympic Stadium.

Unlike other recent games, the run-up to the 2002 Winter Olympics has seen an unprecedented amount of attention focused on Latvia—in Salt Lake City and beyond.

"There’s buzz on the street. People stop me and ask me about Latvia," Bruce Lindsay, a news anchor for local station KSL-TV, told Latvians Online. That’s because the station has been giving Latvia nightly coverage ever since Salt Lake City resident Pēteris Stāks told Lindsay how the country’s athletes repeatedly have been passed over during the opening ceremony telecast.

In Washington, D.C., and in Boston, meanwhile, Gunārs Zāgars has generated his own buzz. It started with an opinion piece he wrote for The Washington Post, which resulted in a story about him in The Boston Globe.

Across the United States, many Latvian-Americans now know the names of Lindsay, Stāks and Zāgars. In Latvia, the news that Latvia is in the news is once again news.

And, of course, getting a medal or two wouldn’t be bad for Latvia’s image, either.

TV station adopts Latvia

It all started in January, when Stāks e-mailed KSL and noted that during the past five Olympics, Latvia’s team has not been shown on network broadcasts of the opening ceremony. In each case, commercials have replaced the Latvian team’s appearance on millions of television sets around the United States.

KSL called Stāks to the studio Jan. 17 and Lindsay interviewed him on the air. Lindsay also promised KSL viewers that the station would broadcast regular updates about Latvia.

Since then, KSL has frequently highlighted some aspect of the Latvia story, including a look at the hockey team, an item on a recent survey that found Latvia is among the most optimistic countries in the world and a piece on sixth graders at a local elementary school who made lap quilts for the team, according to the broadcast monitoring service Utah News Clips. Also planned, according to Lindsay, is an interview with President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga, who will be in town to cheer the Latvian team. The Rīga-based Latvian Institute, among others, has been providing information to the TV station.

Responding to KSL’s frequent "Latvia Update" segments, and perhaps aware of continued complaints about Latvia’s disappearing act, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol told Lindsay in a televised Jan. 31 interview that the Latvian team indeed will be shown this year. NBC, which owns the rights to broadcast the Winter Olympics in the United States, will still break for commercials before the Latvians enter the stadium, Lindsay said, retelling the interview with Ebersol. But as soon as the commercials are over NBC will air videotape of the Latvian team.

A spokesperson for NBC Olympics in Salt Lake City could not be reached to confirm the plan.

Although KSL is an NBC affiliate, Lindsay said the station’s jabs at the network have not caused trouble. "They seem to roll with it," he said.

Stāks admitted to being a bit surprised at how easy it was to get NBC to bend.

"We tend to grouse, we tend to complain, rather than trying to get things done," he said of Latvians. The Salt Lake City community of Latvians totals about a dozen, according to Stāks. He and three others are volunteering at the Winter Olympics.

For his part, Lindsay said, he’s been surprised at how much response the station’s commitment to Latvia has received. KSL’s broadcast signal is received throughout Utah as well as in parts of Idaho, Wyoming and Arizona, while a satellite signal is available in places like Portland, Ore. But e-mails have come from far and wide.

"You have a very supportive community," he said of Latvian-Americans.

Although he’s never visited Latvia, Lindsay is no stranger to the country. "My eighth grade geography report was on the Baltic republics," the news anchor recalled.

"The eminent pride in the nation is really astounding," he added.

Stopping the rain

In the Boston suburb of Westford, Gunārs Zāgars had finally had enough after watching the NBC telecast of the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. He told Latvians Online he began penning a letter to the editor, but by the time it was finished it had turned into a 1,500-word op-ed piece. Editors at The Washington Post accepted the piece, but suggested that it might be better to publish the article closer to the 2002 Winter Olympics.

And that’s what happened. Zāgars’ bylined article, "Dear NBC: Stop Raining on Our Latvian Parade," ran in the Jan. 27 edition. The article discussed his family’s disenchantment with the continual snubbing of Latvia and other nations. During each of the five Olympics since Latvia regained independence, they had looked forward to seeing the Latvian flag and the Latvian team.

"But coverage of the opening ceremonies in 1992 broke for commercials before the Latvians were introduced and resumed after they had passed by," Zāgars wrote. "The same thing happened in 1994. And in 1996. And in 1998. Each year we would tune in, eager to catch a small glimpse of our Olympic heroes, and each year we would get Japan… Kenya… the Koreas… and Kummercials."

For Zāgars the snubbing took on extra meaning. His Rīga-born mother, sprinter and high jumper Zinaida Liepiņš, had represented Latvia in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics. She died in March 2000, six months before the Sydney Olympics, never having seen her team again march onto the Olympic field.

Zāgars’ effort has been rewarded with kudos from the Latvian Institute and acquaintances as well as with an invitation to a lunch in Washington featuring President Vīķe-Freiberga. Zāgars had a chance to briefly chat with the president.

‘Kungi’ and ‘Dāmas’

The central meeting point for fans of Team Latvia in Salt Lake City is the Green Street Social Club, 610 Trolley Square. That’s where team members have dined, where fans from Latvia and elsewhere have congregated to get their bearings, and where local patrons have had a crash course in the Latvian language.

Latvian flags adorn the establishment, said Manager Garrett Wilson, and even the restrooms are marked "Kungi" and "Dāmas."

The social club also has been selling Latvian T-shirts and flags. However, one thing missing is Latvian beer.

"We should have got on that," Wilson admitted.

While all the attention has been good for business, the biggest event for the social club may be just ahead. President Vīķe-Freiberga is rumored to be planning to stop by Saturday evening.

So how does a bar in Salt Lake City prepare for a presidential visit?

"We’re gonna find that out," Wilson said with a chuckle.

Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga and Gunārs Žagars

Latvian President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga shares a laugh with Gunārs Zāgars during a meeting in Washington, D.C. (Photo courtesy of Norma Zāgars)

Andris Straumanis is a special correspondent for and a co-founder of Latvians Online. From 2000–2012 he was editor of the website.

South of the border: Latvians in Akmenė

Philip Birzulis | 

Latvians of Akmenė

Some members of the Akmenė Latvian community pose for a wintery photograph. Back row from left to right: Tomas Pliuskys, Alvīne Jankauskiene and Valdis Bogavičius. Front row: Valda Pliuskiene, and Spodra Bogavičiene. (Photo by Philip Birzulis)

While most Latvian diaspora communities are thousands of kilometres from their ancestral homeland, Akmenė in Lithuania is almost within walking distance. Latvians have lived in and around this small town, just 20 kilometers from the current border, for two centuries.

The first settlers were farmers from Zemgale, Latvia’s southernmost province, who arrived in the early 1800s to buy cheap land. Although assimilation and Stalinist terror have reduced their numbers, today there are still 30 Latvian families in the town of 3,500, for a total of about 360 people in the Akmenė District. These are some of the roughly 4,700 Lithuanian citizens with the nationality “Latvian” written in their passports. Based on the number of out-of-country voters at the last Latvian parliamentary elections in 1998, the Latvian embassy in Vilnius estimates that there are additionally 120 citizens of Latvia residing in Lithuania.

Unlike their Catholic Lithuanian neighbours, the Latvians of Akmenė still observe the Lutheran faith of their ancestors. A wooden Lutheran church was erected in 1829 in the village of Alkiškiai, 7 km from Akmenė, and a stone one built in its place in 1841 is still used for services. A cemetery adjacent to the church contains numerous Latvian names and inscriptions. One of the headstones is dedicated to Edvīns Švāģeris, a parish priest who served seven Latvian parishes along the border, even under Soviet rule, until his death in 2001. Today, a Latvian minister from Kaunas, Lithuania’s second city, makes frequent visits.

The Latvians in Akmenė say that before the war there was a thriving community based around the Alkiškiai church, which supported two choirs and two Latvian societies. There were even two Latvian schools that closed when the teachers were shipped off to Siberia in 1951. The local people were successful farmers, a quality that brought tragedy for many of them during the mass deportations of 1949. Some hid with relations in Latvia to escape persecution, while others who returned from Siberia were banned from resettling in their old homes. Others moved to Latvia after the war because life there was more orderly than in Lithuania, say the locals, leading to a sharp reduction in the numbers of Latvians.

Life is not easy today either. During the Soviet era, several factories making cement and construction materials provided a relatively high standard of living, but the closure of these plants after independence has led to high unemployment.

These economic worries make it hard for Akmenė residents to travel to Latvia. They are especially annoyed at rules forcing them to buy insurance every time they cross the border. Furthermore, they complain that while the Lithuanian government builds houses, sends teachers and help its co-nationals living in Latvia in other ways, Rīga doesn’t do much for its own people. They would like a Latvian teacher to visit them at least occasionally.

Despite these frustrations, the community is still active. Unlike Lithuanians, the Latvians celebrate Jāņi (Midsummer’s Eve) and enjoy singing Latvian songs. The local council gives them free use of two rooms in a community centre where books, maps of Latvia and other items demonstrating the pride they have in their origins are displayed. Several hundred Latvians come together at the annual kapu svētki, the day for the remembrance of the deceased, at Alkiškiai. While intermarriage with Lithuanians has been taking place for at least two generations, some young people in their 20s and 30s still speak Latvian, although their own children may be assimilated.

This process is reflected in the life story of Valda Pliuskienė. Her grandmother and mother moved from Rīga to live with relatives in Akmenė during World War I, while her father, who was born in Auce in Zemgale, joined his family in Akmenė before 1914. Pliuskienė married a Lithuanian, and while her son Tomas Pliuskys speaks Latvian, he thinks of himself as a Lithuanian. Only one of Pliuskienė’s four grandchildren speaks Latvian.

Nevertheless, the community still maintains contacts with its ethnic homeland. Choirs and folklore groups from Dobele, a town in southern Latvia, often visit Akmenė to give performances. The Akmenė Latvians also have strong ties with their compatriots in Klaipeda, Joniškis, Kaunas, Vilnius and elsewhere in Lithuania. And they show off their Latvian language and culture at festivals in the local district.

It seems likely that this southern Latvian outpost will be around for a while yet.

Latvian church near Akmenė

The Latvian Lutheran Church at Alkiškiai, near Akmenė. (Photo by Philip Birzulis)

Album offers peek at a dark metal future

Egils Kaljo | 

These days, admitting that you are a heavy metal fan is not an easy thing to do. Unfortunately, heavy metal has gotten a bad reputation, associated with cheesy bands in the 1980s sporting absurd hair and bad makeup, or for supposedly “influencing” people to either commit suicide or worship Satan.

When I was younger, I listened to quite a bit of metal myself. I would frighten friends and family with the music I listened to: band with names like Metallica, Megadeth and Iron Maiden and songs with titles like “Harvester of Sorrow,” “Wake Up Dead” and “The Number of the Beast.” The album covers would reflect the titles, with pictures of skeletons, demons, graveyards and similar imagery.

Most people figure that it is just a teenage thing and it passes, but I enjoy listening to heavy metal whenever possible. And I am glad to say that I have neither committed suicide, nor do I worship Satan. I like the aggressive music, the bleak lyrics and the blunt attitude of many of the bands. This kind of music helps get out your own aggression, or close off the rest of the world when you want.

Heavy metal is quite popular in Latvia. Most every time I walk around Vecrīga, I see many posters advertising heavy metal bands that are playing in the area. Their shows are well attended, too. Most of their recognition comes through word of mouth. Though heavy metal is popular, many of these bands don’t have the resources to put together a complete album. Thankfully, Gailītis G (of all labels!) has provided an outlet for many of these bands to reach a wider audience.

The fourth volume of the Black Friday metal compilation album collects 15 tracks (totaling about 70 minutes of music) by a wide variety of bands from Latvia. Most of the songs are in English, some are in Latvian and some I can’t tell what language they are in!

The quality of the songs is quite varied. Some are still in the demo phase, but some are release-quality recordings. Regardless, it is still an interesting journey through the rugged landscape of Latvian heavy metal.

The album begins with “Angel’s Tears” by the band Heresy from their EP Heresy. The song begins with a disembodied female voice chanting some Latin words in the style of the “industrial metal” sound of groups like White Zombie. The only words I can make out are the chorus of “God is dead, and no one cares!” It’s a good song.

Also in the industrial metal vein is Huskvarn’s “Save Your Soul,” but the song reminds me a bit too much of Marilyn Manson, although the vocals are hard to hear.

Next is Skyforger with “Sešas ārprāta dienas” from the album Latvian Riflemen. Skyforger’s claim to fame is that they sing songs about Latvian warriors and even dress the part, judging by their picture in the liner notes. Their Web site lists them as being “deeply inspired by their native folklore and pagan heritage” and their lyrics being “poetry based upon the stories from times of the World War I.” Very good guitar work in this one, especially aggressive music, but the lyrics are too far down in the mix for me and I can make out few words.

“Autumn” by Sanctimony, from the album Eternal Suffering, is up next. This is a rather generic “death metal” song. Death metal is characterized by bludgeoning, extremely distorted guitars and drums, along with growled, incoherent vocals (sort of like an angry Cookie Monster). Fans of the genre (bands like Cannibal Corpse and Carcass) will probably like this, but it’s a bit dull for my tastes. The same applies to the group Preternatural with their song “Presence” from a demo tape of the same name. I like the guitar work, but the high-pitched guttural growling makes this song sound like any other death metal song.

Plenty of death metal is found on this album. Songs include Brute Chant’s “Olympiad” from their album Killer Each of You, The track sounds like the production was intentionally made muddy, as the vocals are routinely drowned out by the noisy guitars.

Moving further back to the mainstream is Fatum’s song “We Are Dreaming of Peace.” The hard driving bass line and the harmonies in the guitars remind me of Iron Maiden. Once again the vocals are mixed too far back, making it hard to understand the words. I liked this song, though. Hopefully, Fatum will be releasing more some day.

One of my favorites on the album is Rainmaker’s “Lietus dziesma.” From the great opening bass line, to the rythmic assault of the guitar, to the menacing (and understandable!) vocals, this is one of the standouts of the album.

Heresiarh’s “Higher Than Hills,” from the album Mythical Beasts and Mediaeval Warfare, is what the band on its Web site calls “Latvian dragon metal.” This is due to the fantasy themes that are throughout its songs. One of the latest trends in the metal world is to add female vocalists, perhaps to counterbalance the roughness of the male vocal. However the female vocals in this one are indecipherable as well.

Another favorite on the record is the Dzelzs Vilks song “Ledus,” which balances an extremely rough guitar part with a lighter keyboard part (sounding like raindrops!), as well as a techno beat and howling vocals. This is the most professional sounding song on the record, but that is no surprise, as Dzelzs Vilks’ lineup is just about the same as Deus (S)ex Machina (who released the soundtrack of the rock opera “Fausts”). They have just released an album, Lai arī tu būtu ar mani, that I will assuredly be purchasing next time I am in Latvia.

“Tu jūti” by Apēdājs is another good, straight-forward metal song, with some great guitar effect work. The Quarks’ song “Dziesma par reklāmu” starts off with an extremely deep bass sound, then brings in some crunching guitars as well. Sounds a bit like the grunge-metal style (a la Stone Temple Pilots). Moral Free’s “Bangin’ on the Radiators” is another straightforward song.

Sliede’s “Vēl prasīts” starts off with a very Van Halen-ish guitar intro but then becomes a Black Sabbath-ish (slow and deliberate guitar riff) song.

The most bizarre track on the collection has to be the last one, “Māt, es gribu būt nevainīgs” by the hardcore band Inokentijs Mārpls. Flying along at 100 miles per hour, the song features a rather unearthly falsetto shriek by the lead vocalist. I presume that they are not trying to be serious in this song, but I’m not entirely sure. Unique, for sure, but an assault on the nerves of the listener.

Liner notes are pretty sparse: a picture of the bands but not much else. For these kinds of compilations, information about who is in the band or a Web site address would be useful. Having the lyrics would have helped, too, especially for the unintelligble death metal songs.

Quite a few tracks here are very good. However, many of the tracks are highly derivative and sound very similar to other, more popular bands from the United States and Europe. And a number of the tracks would benefit from a bit more polishing of the sound and music. However, the album does provide a thorough snapshot of the world of Latvian heavy metal. From listening to this record, the future of this style is very bright (though I’m sure most of the groups would prefer to say that the future looks very dark!).

Details

Black Friday, Vol. IV

Various artists

Gailītis-G,  2001

Egils Kaljo is an American-born Latvian from the New York area . Kaljo began listening to Latvian music as soon as he was able to put a record on a record player, and still has old Bellacord 78 rpm records lying around somewhere.