“For 52 years I’ve been fighting with my hair and I lost this battle. Now I try to take care of them thoroughly, more often go to a hairdresser. However, if someone has an idea or a advice, I’m open.”
– Latvian President Valdis Zatlers to newspaper Telegraf on Sept. 20, 2007.
“I’m prepared to do what’s best for the country, but I don’t know what that is.”
Speaker of Latvian parliament, Saeima, Indulis Emsis on Sept. 17, 2007.
Latvia is the best country in the world because to be a good Latvian one must respect one’s country, know the national anthem and have credit account in at least two banks.. Original here.
The annual inflation hit a ten-year high here and reached 10.1 per cent (or 10. 2 per cent according to the Eurostat data). The government reacted sharply today by adopting this year’s budget with a 0.4 per cent of the GDP surplus.
At the same time, over the weekend, Danske Bank resorted to sarcasm to get its point across to the investors.
Some local observers and policymakers in Latvia claim that Latvia is a special economy and therefore normal economic rules do not apply. Latvia sure is special ? no country in the world has larger imbalances, but unfortunately gravity also works in Latvia and the kinds of imbalances we are seeing there are surely not sustainable and the risk of a hard landing in the economy and financial distress is very significant and no investor should ignore these risks.
Until now the Latvian government has failed to take these risks seriously enough to implement real measures to curb the massive imbalances in the economy. We are well aware that the Latvian government in March put forward a ?plan to combat inflation?. At that time inflation was around 7% y/y and the current account deficit was around 20% of GDP ? this week?s numbers show that the plan has failed to reduce inflation and the current account deficit.
A large group of green beer-bellied northern Irish fans plagued Riga last weekend for a Euro 2008 qualifying match with Latvia. They were everywhere. A center square could have been somewhere in Belfast.
They drank. They sang. They urinated on walls of people’s homes. They painted their faces. They stood out from the calm, reserved Latvians.
I found myself in the green streak on Saturday night, walking toward the stadium for the game. The green streak spread from the Old City to the Skonto stadium, which was quite a distance away.
As the hordes of already-drunken fans wobbled by a monument to Barclay de Tolly, a Russian general, erected recently in the city, their curiosity was piqued by a group of Russian nationalists demanding Russian to be a state language.
In a traditional Russian custom, the group gathered in spite of the ban by the Riga City Council and the denial of appeal by the Administrative Court. It was also in a great Russian tradition, the occasion was carefully selected. Apparently, Sept. 8 is the anniversary of the battle at Kulikovo when Russians defeated the Mongol-Tatars, prompting a start of the Russian liberation from the Mongol yoke. Which has nothing to do with this country.
“We’re Russians, God is with Us” said one slogan. A passionate, articulate young man, Evgeny Osipov, who might as well resemble a Russian-speaking Hitler, if not by his looks, but at least in the way he delivered fiery speeches. He was surrounded by followers, curious people, and journalists. He was dressed like a Great Leader, a red shirt of the color of the Soviet flag and a very black Stalin-like suit.
The event was attended by two members of parliament, which somehow adds credibility to this man. Unfortunately.
Mostly pensioners watched. A Russian man who moved here in 1978 from Crimea argued with the pensioners, who often were too emotional to see a reason. He supported the language and immigration policies.
The pensioners opposed him.
Over all, it went peaceful in spite of a large police presence. Regardless though, a group of old Russian-speaking individuals wasted their time demanding the right of the Russian language to become an official one.
It will never happen for many reasons. For one, the citizenship and naturalization laws have been accepted by the international community, including the European Union. Another reason is that they’re actually working — more Russians are learning Latvian, though they don’t speak it as often as one would like.
Sure, there are problems with the language laws in this country. They get too ridiculous. There’s actually a government body responsible for making your foreign name into the Latvian one. Consider it your Latvian baptism. James and Phillip become Dzejms and Filips.
But in the case of the pensioners though, it’s not about the language law alone. The language question is connected to the citizenship laws, connected to the closed Soviet factories, lost jobs, connected to the demise of the Soviet Union, connected to the overall dissatisfaction with the ruling elite.
It’s a vicious circle that needs to stop some time in the future.
But as for the soccer game, Northern Ireland lost even though it scored the only goal in the game.
The photo is taken just outside my house in Riga. The writing on the wall says, Russia is the Champion”.
Update:Apparently, the Delfi photos don’t work any more.
A friend of mine directed me to this site, listing many reasons why Latvia is a great country. Some of them are true, some not.
Here’s the sampling:
Latvia is the best country in the world
…because only in our woods, while going mushroom-picking one can find a well-hidden Maserati Quattroporte.
…because only our government goes to China on an experience exchange visit.
…because employees at McDonalds make more than our teachers.
…because in our version of “Who wants to be a millionaire?“, one can win 50,000 lats.
… because in Latvia, a bottle of beer costs less than a bottle of water.
… because our inflation is easily noticed. The larger the inflation, the larger the Prime Minister.
… because only in Latvia, we have a president who doesn’t pretend to be stupid. He really is.
… because America has a Freedom statue, we have a monument.
… because Latvian Prime Minister soon won’t fit into a TV set to announce the latest inflation figures.
… because our government is very stable. You can cry, you can picket, you can demonstrate. You can sue it, but nothing will bring it down.
… because only in Latvia, you can say I love my fatherland and be called a fascist.
On Aug. 31,professional and amateur photographers from three Baltic States, Ukraine, Russia, other European countries, and the U.S. captured a slice of today’s life — the same way they have done 20 years ago. “One Day in Latvia: 20 Years Later” allows us to compare the life in Latvia today with the way it was 20 years ago when Latvia was still part of the Soviet Union.
Twenty years changes many things. The Soviet Union is no more. Shopping malls and supermarkets replaced empty shelves of the Soviet gastronoms. The wind of change, which began to pick up at the end of the 1980s, blew past us, leaving the three countries free and democratic.
In 1989, people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania joined together in a live chain connecting three Baltic capitals to show their right to self-determination and independence from the Soviet Union.
That was the peaceful revolution.
Since then, three Baltic brothers went their own ways.
It was important for Lithuania to preserve the farming sector of its economy, along with developing a strong retail market. You cant find an area of the Latvian capital without the most famous Lithuanian import – Maxima stores.
Estonia developed itself into an IT power house, earning a nickname “E-stonia.” It became the birthplace of Skype and the home of the most free economy in the world. The flat tax policies became emulated in other countries, including Latvia and Russia.
Latvia is now trying to develop itself into a transportation corridor between Russia and the rest of Europe.
If Estonia takes a Scandinavian approach to problem solving and Lithuania is culturally and religiously close to Poland, Latvia is stuck between the rock and the hard place.
The rock is the Russian Federation. The hard place is the European Union. Both sides subscribe to different democratic and economic values. And somewhere in between there, you’ll find the small country of Latvia, whose 2.3 million people are also torn between the West and the Wild East.
The role of neither here nor there isn’t new for Latvia. At the dawn of independence from Czarist Russia in 1917, all three nations adopted declarations for self-determination. Lithuanians in Russia and German-occupied Vilnius proclaimed that Lithuanians demand “the right to decide for themselves its political fate and destinies.” At the same time, Estonians demanded their own statehood from the Russian Provisional Government, which wanted to see Estonia as part of the Russian Federated Republic. Estonians would have none of that.
Only Latvia stands unique among the three nations. The Latvian Political Conference said that Latvians have a right to self-determination, however “Latvian shall be a political autonomous unit within the Russian democratic republic.”
Today after two Soviet occupations, Nazi occupation, Latvia still stands on the crossroads between the West and East. Jokingly I say that Latvians are just Russian-wannabes, but it appears that Latvians are more closely associated with Russian values than with those of the West.
