All About Latvia

Take a look at the updated photo gallery from May 9 celebrations at the Victory Monument in Riga

RIGA – In the last few days, I’ve been wrestling with the question of appropriateness of the Victory Day celebration. On one hand, the cruel regime of Hitler was replaced by the lesser evil Stalin when the Allies achieved the victory in distant 1945. On the other hand, for many Russians here in the Baltics and even for some Latvians whose family died in the war, it’s a very important, and a very personal holiday.

The official dictum uttered by the former president Vaira Viķe-Freiberga says that Latvians have nothing to celebrate on May 9 as their country ended up occupied for the following 50 years. But the war, in fact, was over in May 1945. Germany surrendered and the European continent saw no large-scale military conflict again for many years. That’s a historical fact.

While it was almost impossible to spot an ethnic Latvian at the Victory monument yesterday, I saw some. Ethnic Latvians also fought the Germans on the Soviet side. Numbers are insignificantly low, but I’m not sure how many people have to die for a cause to make a holiday appropriate.

And here, in Latvia, almost every Russian family has lost at least one relative in the war. My great-grandmother’s brothers died fighting the Germans. Natalia Antonova writes:

My grandmother started crying on the phone:

“I don’t want you to ever know what it’s like to hear the shelling and know that it’s coming for you.”

War is banal and blind and savage and ultimately meaningless. But there is still something to smile about today, at least for me. If only because its survivors had children, and those children had children, and one of them was me, and another one was my beautiful baby brother. And there’s a reason why we’re here, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives finding out what that reason may be.

And it appears to me by making May 8 or 9 just another day, we void the sacrifices made by those who gave their lives in that banal, blind, savage, and ultimately meaningless war.

I spent most of yesterday at the Victory monument, roaming around, watching people, snapping photos. For a while, it seemed that Riga had turned into Daugavpils, a Russian-dominated Latvian town. It seemed Riga turned into little Russia. A red SUV drove around with a large Russian tricolor (Russians, like Texans, like things big). Russian embassy emissaries were everywhere organizing the 10-hour long concert for the public. The percentage of people wearing sports track suits was the highest at the Victory park than in another other part of Latvia.

In the morning, it reeked of the Soviet nostalgia with a lone portrait of Stalin and red banners. In the evening, youth came out with Russian tricolor and appear to be more patriotic about Russia than Russians across Latvia’s eastern borders. I saw only one man wearing a Latvian hockey jersey and a ribbon of St. George.

I couldn’t understand the ubiquitousness of the Russian flags. At any time, you’d expect the Russian national anthem blast through the speakers. The organizers should have thought to promote a healthy patriotism toward the country they find their homes, Latvia, but I suspect any Latvian national anthem would have been greeted with boos from the large crowd and give more work to the police.

After a short interview in the afternoon, I couldn’t refuse getting a drink with two men twice my age. It’s impolite. One man, Viktor, now teaches computer science at a local school, having worked as an engineer most of his life. His trade is no longer needed in Latvia and he couldn’t adapt to the new way of life after Gorbachev’s reforms. A non-citizen, he moved to Latvia from Russia, just like many others. He likes to compare Russians and Latvians.

“See this monument. This ain’t Milda,” he told me, referring to the nickname for the Freedom Monument a revered site for many Latvians.

The anger at this country, at the apathy of the government, at prevalent corruption and theft, and – frighteningly of all – hatred toward everything Latvian is enormous. For them, the anger trumps over any other emotion. Perhaps, this anger at callous, flippant attitude of the authorities toward those who fought on the “wrong side” – politically speaking – during the war drives many, many people to remember this Victory Day by laying tulips at the feet of the monument.

And throughout the day, even as late as 10 p.m., people kept pouring in to lay flowers.

Loudspeakers blared Soviet-era war music and thousands, young and old, trooped to the war monument honoring Red Army soldiers who fell in World War II. Parents with children, teenagers, many veterans – carrying a bouquet of flowers – flooded the square near the monument under a watchful eye of police.

The VE-Day of May 8 went barely noticed in Latvia. The president and other high-ranking officials attended a ceremony at a military cemetery. For the country with many days of mourning (June 14, March 25, December 4) – no flags signified a day of commemoration. In fact, the whole day was very subdued.

The end of the war signifies the beginning of peace. Tens of millions of people died in that war. Those who returned found their cities, towns and villages in crumbles. One gentleman told me he had spent three years at a concentration camp in Germany. If it hadn’t been for the Russians, who knows what would have happened, he said.

My family own family was lucky, I guess. Only two of my distant granduncles died in the war. My great-grandfather along with my grandmother nearly became victims if it hadn’t been for a technicality. The Nazis killed 200-300 men, women, and children of the village of Audrini in January 1942. My family lived next-door in another village. Audrini was burned to the ground. About 30 of the Audrini villagers were publicly shot in the Rezekne market square, and the remaining villagers were transported to the nearby Anchupani Hills where they too were shot.

These stories are many. The war impacted almost every family in Latvia – whether they ended up packing their suitcases and boarding for Germany, or decided to remain in the occupied Latvia.

The end of this awful war is hard not to commemorate.

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RIGA – Latest PR move of the Latvia’s Ministry of Environment turned their faces red.

On one hand, creating a mascot such as cūkmens, or pig-man, (pictured) to educate the public about enviornment and to fight swine-like behavior of uncouth Latvian public in woods and lakes of this beautiful country may seem like a good thing. After all, no one wants to be a pig.

On the other hand, declaring May 8 – Victory in Europe Day – a day of victory over plastic bags to promote linen bags serves as a slap in the face of those who died in the Second World War, regardless of their nationality. It’s just down right a stupid, or perhaps, ignorant, move on the part of the government. Many Latvians don’t understand what Victory Day means to Russians. Mostly ethnic Latvians work in the government. And the incident further underscores the deep division within the small society as Russians and Latvians are drifting further and further apart.

The government lent Cūkmens to the Lithuanian chain, Rimi, to celebrate replacing plastic bags with linen ones in its stores throughout Latvia.

It has to be added that no one is more vigilant when it comes to Victory Day then the local Russian newspapers. Russia Today “reports”:

The Latvian government are using a mascot called Pig Man, who is meant to symbolise litter louts, in a bid to help clean up their streets.

But the end of the campaign was to coincide with Victory Day, on May 8.

Earlier a Latvian Russian-language daily, The Telegraph, had labeled the move to hold the so-called ‘Day of Victory over plastic bags’ a provocation.

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RIGA – Today marks the rebirth of the independent Latvia. Eighteen years ago the Supreme Soviet of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic adopted a resolution restoring the Baltic nation’s independence after 50 years of Soviet occupation.

For some Latvians, the last 18 years have been disappointing.

Husbands leave their wives and children to make a living picking mushrooms in Ireland. Pensioners continue to struggle to get by on trifling pennies as they watch prices rise. Perception of government corruption continues to persist from almost every corner of the state apparatus. And most importantly, people feel left out of the important decision-making.

Latvia’s independence movement in late 1980s became known as the Third Atmoda, the Awakening. People were filled with hope for the rebirth of the nation, treasuring each moment of that freedom. After years of oppression and tyranny, ethnic Latvians were finally getting their country back. Certainly, no one woke up on May 5, 1990, realizing that they were living in a different country. The change came gradually - one by one.

The resolution established the basic principles that were to guide this country domestically and internationally.

The courageous move on the part of the de facto parliament back in 1990 could not have taken place in today’s Latvia. The current members of the Saeima in the ruling coalition are discipled to vote as their bosses – in Riga, not in Moscow – tell them, creating an atmosphere of political cynicism and public distrust. In 2007 Latvians celebrated the Fourth of May heading into a referendum on the confusing, revoked national security laws. It legally failed because voters tended their summer homes.

This year, the Fourth of May arrives at the time when two grass-root campaigns are before discontented Latvian public. As the International Monetary Fund observers said this week, the public trust in the current government is low.

Within weeks the parliament is set to consider a legislation - initiated by the Latvian Labor Unions - to give the voters the power to dissolve the parliament and call early elections. On the other hand, a group called “Society for different politics” (Sabiedrība citai politikai -SCP), led by former minister of economy Aigars Štokenbergs and former foreign minister Artis Pabriks, is urging people to sign up an initiative to amend the pensions laws. The signature drive concludes May 15. They already forced the government to raise pensions once in April, then another raises are coming up in June and October.

Regardless whether these two initiatives get approved or rejected, they have already sent a strong message to the cynical government. Will it listen? - that’s another question.

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Russian sign reads, “No Smoking” inside the basement of the corner house in Riga

RIGA – Russian-language signs adorn the walls of the narrow low-ceiling hallways that zigzag through a dirty, dusty basement under dim lights between tight cells in the most notorious building in Riga.

During the 50 years of the Soviet occupation that ended in 1991, the building on the corner of two city arteries housed the regional KGB headquarters, instilling fears into Latvians that no one dared to utter its real name.

Instead, everyone, including a Latvian writer Anita Liepa, called it “the corner house.”

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