Quote Originally Posted by mishau_ View Post
Особенно, если принять во внимание, что страны Восточное Европы, включая Балтику, считаются в ЕС странами второго сорта.
Ok, I obviously don't think that, or I wouldn't be studying an Eastern European language. I don't think most people feel that way. In IT at least, we know that the Eastern European collegues are usually first class.

However, in the 90s I did, for a while. At the time it seemed that everyone in Eastern Europe had just lost every sense of dignity in the pursuit of dollars... Of course, I did not know just how desperate their situation there situation was. And probably, the great majority never did this. But it was like Jekyll and Hyde transformation.... I had believed that Eastern Europeans were clever people, idealistic about socialism for the most part, and lived very peaceful lives. And then suddenly every Eastern European you meet is a crook!

In exactly that vacuum, the EU started emerging on the scene as a new political power (it became a "union") and it was time for my country to join. I was active together with lots of friends at Uni. Something had to replace the ideological and power vacuum that the early 90s had created, and for many, the EU was that entity.

I am not sure what to make of the situation now. Eastern Europeans are as intelligent and hardworking as everyone else in Europe, possibly more so, in some cases. But their countries are used as cheap manufacturing locations, for outsourcing and as a source of manpower for jobs that are hard to fill in Western Europe. This is not what my friends and I envisaged at all. But at the same time it is really good that the "iron curtain" is gone and all Europeans can travel and interact freely.

Почему люди считают, что старны Балтики должны быть чем-то лучше Афганистана, Ирака и Ливии? В конце концов, вхождение Прибалтики в состав СССР не противоречило международным правилам на тот момент, и было признано всеми странами, включая США. В отличие, скажем, от вторжения в Ирак, которое ООН не санкционировал.
Yes, I think there is no difference between the behaviour of the USA & co in the Middle East. Possibly they are worse. As stated, what happened in the Baltic States was agreed in the peace negotiations between the allies after the war, if I am not mistaken. How ethical such an agreement is, is another story though. But no country refused to acknowledge the annexation.

And in the case of Latvia, I think the bases were probably ok while they were still active. It's what happened after that, that is disturbing. And the fact that they were there against the will of the locals. Similar to Afghanistan now.

I saw some families living in squalor. I would not surprise me if these places were deliberately abandoned on purpose, by everyone in power. The families still living there are probably those with nowhere else to go. It was rather sad. In Daugavpils I saw a massive EU project to do with renovating an old fortress. Next to the fortress lived a group of Russian speaking EU citizens in miserable conditions...
I don't care about renovating some fortress!! I would like to see my tax money used to have those people re-housed and in a job training program, or repatriated to Russia in a dignified way, if Latvia is not prepared to support them.
Quote Originally Posted by nulle
Of course - it was an occupied territory after all - local "burgeous nationalists" and "fascists" needed to be kept in check. And Hanna - you said that beach in Liepāja was nice - in Soviet Times most of Kurzeme's beaches were off-limits to everyone except military (trespassers were shot) - to prevent people escaping to dirty, burgeous, capitalistic Sweden.
Well, the situation with that beach seems a bit unclear. I was told lots of different stories about whether the beach was closed or not. People who grew up there in Soviet times talked about having played on the beach in their childhood, so clearly some parts of it had been open, at least. I think it was only a small part of the beach that was closed off. There was a very nice park and a sanatorium located exactly where the military zone was supposed to start. Seems like a strange location.

Ok back to Latvia = lots of old radar towers, and a few lookout towers to keep track of what was going on in town were still around. Plus a large military town, called "Karosta" - this was definitely closed off, all the signs of this were still visible although the town was in a very sorry state.

Here is an intersting fact. When I was in Karosta I saw a few guys out running who looked completely out of place. They looked very much like American marines although I did not hear them speak. They ran into what looked like a military complex but it has no marks to say what it was. Hm!?

The Baltic people who got asylum in Sweden during the Cold war, were mostly crooks, sadly. The first wave of people that left in 1945 were just regular farmers etc. Some were native Swedish speakers. Good people. But after that, most of the people that left were in trouble with law and didn't fancy a Soviet prison.... That was the popular opinion at that time, anyway. When they came to Sweden they could claim political asylum, and to some extent the USSR was probably happy to see them go.