All About Latvia

RIGA – Do you know who you are as a person? Do you know who you are as a nation?

These are important questions to consider when talking about a society in transition. Unlike Estonians, Latvians don’t consider themselves Nordic or Scandinavian. Unlike Lithuanians, Latvians don’t consider themselves drawn into Central Europe. Unlike both of them together, Latvian national identity is rather weak.

So for almost 18 years of the renewed independence, Latvians have been wrestling with it.

The national identity dictates everything. It offers you confidence in knowing your strengths and weaknesses as a nation. It builds up a healthy sense of pride in your country. It tells you what kind of social structure your country’s government would have. It tells you what kind of form of government, what rights you would have. It solves many societal problems with a simple answer. Once we know who we are, we’ll know how to solve our problems.

A long line of pensioners stood outside one office in the Old Town earlier this month. They waited to sign a petition to raise pensions to the level of the living wages. The efforts led by the fallen People’s Party angel now independent MP Aivars Stokenbergs are populist at the first glance. However, Stokenbergs had advocated building in Latvia a Nordic system of values – creating a softer social pillow in case one should retire or have children. Collecting signatures sounds like a logical first step.

His signature drive thwarted into the spotlight the problem of pensioners. With the rising inflation (January’s indicator was at 15.8 per cent, the highest in the EU) and even faster rising food prices (also the fastest in the EU), the call for the Scandinavian values will surely find a listener. A young mother friend of mine says she gets 30 Ls ($65) a month to clothe, feed, and take care of her almost one-year-old daughter. She would love to take care of her child without worrying about the next paycheck.

And because more people die in Latvia than are born, the government ought to have an inherent interest in supporting a difficult job of raising a child. The slumping demographics also will put pressure on the pension system where the working generation supports the retired generation. Soon you just won’t have enough employed people support a larger number of retirees.

In short, the system is about to crack.

The government opposes the collection of signatures, dubs it populist and useless. Latvian Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis promised to raise pensions at least three times this year, otherwise it would strain the budget.

But the problem goes beyond pensions. It goes into the heart of the Latvian way of life. Latvia does not have a role model it wants to follow. It cannot decide whether it’s a Scandinavian country, a European country or a province of Russia. Consequently, it cannot decide if it wants the Nordic social model, a continental European model, or a Russian model.

And at times it feels like Latvians are hoping for the Russian model. They’re hoping for the benevolent dictator to come as a savior on the white horse and solve all social ills. He will be saimnieks of this country. He will own it and will be responsible for it. He will get stuff done and no one will go hungry again. The mayor of Ventspils is such a role model and part of Latvian national identity.

But we really don’t know who we are. We are only now considering a Nordic model for our government at the time when Estonia leaped light years ahead of us in its standard of living that now some Latvians move to Estonia to work while we’re debating the past.

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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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RIGA – It could’ve happened to anyone.

I’ve heard many stories about people stealing someone’s credit or debit cards and draining them out. I’ve heard an unconfirmed case of someone trying to spy to find out a pin code of one card. I’ve also heard a guy – threatening a woman with a gun – asked her to empty her bank account at an ATM. The video didn’t capture him and it looked as though she withdrew the money herself.

Most of those stories came from my father who’s not known to be an authority on banking. Inherently distrusts ATMs, Internet or banks, he walks inside a bank with one purpose – only to exchange the mighty dollar he gets from his employer.

He is a representative of the Soviet generation who lost all of the savings in Soviet bonds (after all, they were secured by the Soviet government, which didn’t exist any more) when the evil empire crumbled. He also represents the people who invested their money in questionable banks, like Latvia’s largest Banka Baltija in 1994, offering to pay up to 20 per cent a month on the saving accounts. It was bound to be a scheme and it was. It resulted in a lot of people being very upset because they lost a lot of money.

Those were the growing pains of the years of wild capitalism.

Needless to say after hearing these stories, I was a bit worried to leave my bank card anywhere and always protecting the precious PIN number.

One phone call, however, restored all my confidence in the banking system. After I stopped at a post office, I ventured to a friend’s house, which was less than 20 minutes away. I barely stepped in, when my phone rang.

It was my bank, Hansa Banka.

A woman with a pleasant voice told me that the bank decided to put a hold on my debit card after someone from the post office called them. The post office let the bank know I left my card there. It was an unexpectedly-pleasant surprise amidst the stereotypical steal-while-you-can routine you hear so often about.

Apparently, they chased me around, too – they called home first to find out where I was before they reached me on my cell phone.

The following morning, I went into the post office to pick up my card and thank them for their service. Then, I stopped at the bank to reactivate my card, making sure no one’s tampered with the account.

And voila, my money has been protected for me the whole time.

Thank you, Latvijas Pasts and Hansa Banka. You’re the best.

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Originally this post was written on March 17, 2007. However, the recent news of a British tourist earning five-day detention for urinating at the Freedom Monument and subsequent remarks by the Interior Minister Mareks Seglins, who called British a nation of “pigs” and “swine” is why I’m recycling this post.

Leta reported a 29-year-old British tourist, ironically named John, answered a call of nature in a park near the Freedom Monument Friday night as his friends decided to commemorate the event by whipping out their cameras.

Yep, the same place where earlier the same day, a group of ultra-left and ultra-right came to commemorate the March 16 events.

The principle of urination seems so simple. You walk into a bathroom/toilet/WC. You whip it out at an appropriate moment. And you let go.

This concept of urination gets more complicated if you add a heavy dose of alcohol to the mix.

Mike Johnson, an American who owns and operates the hotel business in Riga (which I highly recommend, by the way) told me about his new blog, Riga Rooster.

In his most recent post, Mike writes about good ol’ British boys who don’t hesitate to bring their British spunk and culture to Latvia.

… I see all the boys who visit the city for the cheep bear and late night howels. They must think I am sleeping; but I arise to crow about the same time they stagger back to their hotels leaving behind the content of their nights drink in piles and streams along the street.

The British Embassy in Riga offers a general advice how to behave in foreign countries. It includes a sensible “follow local customs” mantra.

But it doesn’t work.

Maybe that’s why just two days ago, the British Embassy in Riga launched a campaign targeted at British tourists (hat tip: Mike) to think before they drink.

Or piss.

“Having analysed the kinds of problems which British visitors were experiencing - and, yes, in some cases, causing - we decided to take action to try to reduce the number of these problems,’ Ambassador Ian Bond told the media.

Apparently, the problem of public urination goes deeper into the annals of history and way to the other side of the European continent.

Shortage of public restrooms in London prompted one woman to open a luxury powder room available for about US $10.

“The number of toilets,” the article says, …

dropped 40 percent from 2000 to 2005, leaving 415 to serve a population of 7.5 million, government figures show. That’s not including the 28 million people who visit the UK capital each year.

Local authorities say they can’t afford to maintain and modernize restrooms. Many have been sold to property developers, who convert them into more profitable uses, including apartments and nightclubs. Those that remain often are so dirty or rundown that they’re mostly used by drug addicts and homeless people.”

And then,

Public urination “is one of the unfortunate aspects of London,” said Aidan Onn, 36, who runs a toyshop called Playlounge in Soho. “The streets always stink.”

The shortage belies London’s history as an exemplary provider of public toilets. Its first public lavatory was built in the 12th century at the site of what is now the Royal Bank of Canada’s offices. During the Victorian era, public bathrooms multiplied, and often boasted mosaic tiling and copper pipes.

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