All About Latvia

LONDON – Gone to the U.S. for two weeks. No updates are expected until January 15.

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RIGA – A friend of mine asked me the other day whether I had heard that Soviet partisan-veteran Vasily Kononov has been acquitted by the European Courts of Human Rights.

I have not. The Latvian media had kept a tight lid on the news that would have been splashed across the front pages all major newspapers in this country.

Or it wasn’t news at all.

It turned out to be a figment of someone’s overactive imagination, or simply reporting based on hearsay without crediting any sources. Ivan v. Jaan chronicles pretty well how this news item evolved from an utter acquittal to its mysterious disappearance among English-language Russian news sources known for their impartiality and balance.

Okay, the last three words were thrown in for a joke.

Of all news sources in Latvia, Russian-language Telegraf alone picked up on the non-news news.

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RIGA – Wishing all readers a very Merry Christmas with this photo of a Maxima-sponsored Christmas tree by the Cabinet of Ministers in Riga. We’ll be back on December 27.

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EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, right, receives a Zoll-Douane sign from an unidentified person as a souvenir in Zittau, on Germany’s eastern fringe, where the country meets Poland and the Czech Republic. Source: Yahoo!

TALLINN – I celebrated joining the common visa zone on the border of Latvia and Estonia standing in the crowd of people who came out to the border posts in Valga and Valka.

And it felt like being part of the history for them and for me.

An older man was asking his friends to take more photos.

“They’ll put them in the museum, you know,” he said.

At midnight, the border gates opened, allowing people from both sides of the border to mingle.

Then, I drove to Tallinn in the middle of the night, crashing in a hotel room when it was already early morning.

Right now, we’re all anticipating the arrival of the EU Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini and the European Commission President Jose Barroso at the Tallinn sea port.

A big band military orchestra is playing Christmas-theme music and rag time at the Tallinn port. Messages flash on the large screen - “No More Passport, Just Pass the Port.”

Joining Schengen for nine EU countries opens up another chapter in the European history for the Eastern European countries, including the three Baltic states.

In an atmosphere of symbolism and unity, political leaders all over eastern parts of the European Union broke apart border fences, railings, and gates. For millions of people around the continent at midnight, it felt like an instant page for history books.

Gradually, the continent torn apart by war and conflict throughout centuries is becoming more united than ever before in history.

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