Quote Originally Posted by Hanna View Post
I started this thread before I had been to Latvia. The information that I had read was very much biased in favour of the Russian speakers, presenting them as a mistreated minority. What I noticed in Latvia was that the majority there are actually bilingual, and practically minded enough to make an effort to communicate with the other language group. I heard Latvians speak Russian and Russians speak Latvian. I heard a bit of complaints from both sides, but nothing radical. The country is not about to fall apart over this.

On the petition that Nulle mentions: Well if the people concerned don't care about it, then neither do I.

I was certainly under the impression that they were being discriminated against, linguistically, but too unused to democracy to figure out what to do about it. If these people are happy to speak Latvian in all situations, then that's fine by me.

I read a Russian speaking newspaper in Latvia and they were rather laidback about the language issue, although it was mentioned a few times there was no big drama, just a concern about education in Russian.

PS - Nulle do you know any good online computer / electronics retailer in Latvia? I would like to buy something that I saw in Latvia that is not avaialble in Sweden..
Ну, это вы как-то необъективно говорите. Во-первых, я не уверен в цифрах Нулле, и это не окончательный результат. Во-вторых, то, что люди могут говорить по-латышски, не исключает того, что им не нравится, когда их язык не уважают и стремятся вытеснить. Кроме того, не уважают историю, говорят, что они оккупанты и т. д. Но это не значит, что это для них вопрос жизни и смерти и что они из-за этого устроят восстание.