Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
There are free language courses (and in Russian schools 60% of lessons should be in Latvian).
I've just read that there were free (except for the schoolchildren and the unemployed) Latvian language courses in Riga in late 2011, and people are invited to sign up for similar courses scheduled for 2012. These courses are funded with Riga's money, so it's not a nationwide initiative. In online discussions Russian Latvians welcome this decision and regret that there were no such free courses for the last 20 years (!). Are they mistaken?

Quote Originally Posted by nulle View Post
"It was a mistake to secede from USSR",
"wait a bit and you will receive citizenship and Russian as an official language (so you will not have to learn Latvian)".
And open border with Russia for non-citizens also is a good reason remain non-citizen.
There are also some non-citizens with a firm stance against naturalization despite having sufficient knowledge of Latvian to pass the exams.
They just find it offensive that they were not granted citizenship without any questions after living in the country for 50-60 years and even voting for Latvian independence in 1991 (yes, many Russian Latvians actually voted for free democratic Latvia, and they couldn't imagine at the time that they would have to earn their citizenship afterwards)!


What about language inspections - it is a very sensitive issue from the Russian Latvians' point of view. Some people complain that officers asked them embarrassing questions about their descent. Also they say that Russian businessmen in Latvia tend not to hire native Latvians because they may file a complaint about insufficient use of the Latvian language at work. Clearly language police is perceived by Russian Latvians as an offensive force, and they unanimously agree that the authorities should better spend taxpayers' money on popularization of the Latvian language instead. Love cannot be forced.

And what about privileges - I've heard about one particular privilege that Latvians had in Russia during Soviet times. They could enroll in the topmost universities (like MSU in Moscow) competing only with their fellow Latvians (there were reserved places for different ethnic minorities from across the Soviet Union), whereas Russians had no such special treatment. Please correct me if I'm wrong.