Thread: Regarding Russian in the Baltic States

Mixture of attempts to look democratic and with ethnical dictatorship.

Unlike Russia - Latvia is democratic. Election rigging like in Russia is simply unthinkable here.
And if there is ethnical dictatorship - why Russians better stay here and not move to Russia? (even those who live near the border - they could move only couple of kilometers (less than 100) and be in Russia)
Some even apply for Russian citizenship to get Russian pension (age of retirement is lower in Russia), but still stay here...

Everyone realises that the people in question were either moved to Latvia for work- perhaps not even according to their own preference, but as a work posting. Others read information by the perfectly legal (at the time) state saying "Move to Latvia - lots of opportunities... " etc. and they heeded it in good faith. It is not fair to call them "illegal immigrants today".

Yes, and that's why we gave them permanent residence permits and allowed them to stay here. (Unlike some Central-Asian republics which started to simply lynch Russian immigrants and throw them out of their homes (Tajikistan) )
We understand that many of them did not even know that Baltics was occupied territory - USSR propaganda was really powerful.
This problem was not created by Latvians, but by USSR and we handled it as best as we could.
And remember that 400 000 of them voted AGAINST Latvian independence - and we allowed them to stay too...
Hell, we even allowed retired military officials to stay (only those who served in active military service had to leave).

I think it's petty, ridiculous and immature for a country to require political parties to sign up to stuff like that just because they have a axe to grind. Other countries do not require political parties to agree to statements of this nature.

Country did not require them to sign up.
Other political parties (who had majority) required them.
And this "stuff like that" are foundations of Latvia - party that does not respect them have no place in government - don't care that they claim to represent Latvia's Russian population (they are not representing - Russians join and vote for other parties too).
There is huge difference between -
"Latvia declared independence in 1918 and was unlawfully occupied by USSR and later - in 1990 restored independence"
"Latvia voluntarily joined USSR in 1940 and ceased to exist, in 1990 a new country called Latvia seceded from USSR and declared independence".
Latvians and most of our political parties (regardless of ideology) and Western world agrees to first version.
Russia and Harmony Centre agrees to second.
These two views are not compatible and there is not anything to discuss about them.

Nils is not a Russian name.... ? It's common in Scandinavia, maybe Baltic states too.. Maybe he's of mixed parentage.

He says that his nationality is Russian and he is former non-citizen.
I, personally don't like him, not because he's Russian, but because he is wasting my tax money on unnecessary shit...
And also because he says that Latvian should be the only oficial alnguage, but at he same time he also went and signed this petition for russian to be official.

Originally Posted by nulle

And if there is ethnical dictatorship - why Russians better stay here and not move to Russia?

Этот прием в демагогии называется "неявное умолчание" - возражение против некоего утверждения, которое в моей фразе явно отсутствует.

- Вы утверждаете, что у вас болит рука. Что же вы ее не отрубите?
- Раз нет хлеба, ешь пирожные!

Referendum for the Russian language as the second state language in Latvia is scheduled for tomorrow. It's time to remember some not so fair things about the language situation in this country. Here are some facts:

1. Russian language descriptions on goods and meds are often hidden behind a sticker with Latvian language description. Funny enough, there may be descriptions in ten other languages, but only Russian is routinely chosen to be removed in that way.
2. Center for the state language forbade to publish social advertising designed to raise awareness of cancer in Russian.
3. There are no signs in Russian and no way to communicate with the authorities in Russian even in overwhelmingly Russophone municipalities.
4. Language "police" fines employers for insufficient use of the Latvian language at work (I wonder how do they measure it...).
5. Higher education in Russian is forbidden in educational institutions funded by the state while higher education in EU languages is allowed.

So I'm not surprised that Russian Latvians are not very happy with such treatment of their native language. I think it's impossible to win the referendum, but may be it will show the authorities that there is the need for a change though.

The results are here: as it was expected, ~75% voted against Russian as a second state language, while ~25% voted in favor. So Latvian language remains the sole state language of Latvia. This referendum has record-breaking high turnout (~71% of voters), mainly because chief political forces successfully campaigned against the two state languages solution. However, it is likely that Russian Latvians will continue their struggle to promote the Russian language to some official status within at least some parts of Latvia.