Thread: Regarding Russian in the Baltic States

Good response Nulle!
And no, I do not think that you "should just give up and ask Russia to incorporate us once again".
Clearly that is NOT what Baltic people want. It's good that your countries are independent. Russia should respect your independence (I think it does) and the Russian speaking minorities should accept that they are minority and have a certain historical legacy to be a bit careful with.

I just get a bit provoked by all your antiRussia comments on this Russian website. I mean, is this really the ideal place to vent your frustrations?

Also, I am saying that the Baltic states, including you for example seem a bit too suspicious and hateful towards Russia and Russians. Oppressing the current Russian minority and discriminating against their language is not ok simply because Latvians think that their country was poorly done by the USSR. That's my point.

I mean, you want to be a bit mature about the past - for example like SouthAfrica is - they decided to let bygones be bygones and look to the future instead.

I think that the Russian language in Latvia should at least be promoted to the official status within municipalities with high percentage of native Russian speakers. By doing so the authorities would show respect to the significant part of the population. Stubborn denial of any official status for the Russian language is stupid, because you just can't ignore demands of the third part of the population. But the language is just one of many integrational issues in Latvian society, alongside with non-citizens and involvement of Russian community representatives in government. Ignoring these problems alienates native Russian speakers of Latvia and makes them feel like they are the second-class people in their own country. This could lead to aggravation of tensions in Latvian society and even to civil unrest.

Interestingly, recent months saw an exacerbation of the struggle for equal rights in Latvia, particularly the collection of signatures for changing the status of the Russian language and for granting citizenship to all non-citizens unconditionally (so called "zero-option"). It's even referred to as Russian atmoda in online discussions to draw a parallel with the periods of Latvian national awakening, implying that it's now Russian Latvians' turn to awaken. They've become more vocal than ever. It's interesting what will come out of it - equal rights for everyone and integration based on mutual respect of two communities or deeper disintegration of already dysfunctional Latvian society? Frankly speaking, there are only three ways to deal with the situation in Latvia:
1) to assimilate Russians into the Latvian society, but it'll not work because they don't want to;
2) to get rid of Russians somehow, and there are just two options - either deportation (that means civil war) or encouraging them to leave, for example by offering them some money, kind of an incentive fee, but it would be too costly, because Latvian population is already shrinking and the country just can't afford to lose more taxpayers and pay for that too - it's an economical suicide;
3) to integrate Russians into the Latvian society.
I think the third alternative is the best and Latvian authorities make statements in the same vein, but their "integration efforts" are reduced to absurdity and rely mainly on repressive measures like language police slapping a fine on people for insufficient use of the Latvian language at work (yes, they really have that! o_O), institute of non-citizenship, political boycott etc. In other words, they're speaking of integration, but trying to achieve ill-conceived assimilation, and fail at both. They should change their flawed approach and take Russian Latvians into consideration to build a coherent society.