Thread: Языковая обстановка в Латвии и др.

Why doesn't Russian language have any status in Latvia if there are so many native Russian speakers?
Why did Hanna get a strange reaction when she sterted speaking Russian to people in Riga?

Why doesn't Russian language have any status in Latvia if there are so many native Russian speakers?

In last soviet years ethnic latvians were about ~50% of population (now ~60%).
And there were a lot of soviet immigrants that did not understand Latvian - it's knowledge was not required - Russian was FIRST official language of Latvian SSR - Soviet regime pressured Russian onto all of us.
That's why immediately after independence there was de-russification campaign - Russian street signs were torn down, all public sector and government shifted to Latvian only. (But Russian schools remained)
(Previously language of government was Russian only, because everything was dictated from Moscow).
You know - you cannot force someone to love you .
And like in all Baltic states - law was passed that made Latvian the sole official language of Latvia.
And after that decision was made - to integrate people on Latvian language and cultural basis.
Some of immigrants did not like this and they left, some became citizens and some - well they do not really know what they want to be - continue to live as non-citizens.
Apparently this approach is somewhat working, because Russian speaking population is decreasing, but Latvian speaking - is increasing.
Maybe there is no official status, but you can still get education in Russian and almost every public place will service you in Russian.

Why did Hanna get a strange reaction when she sterted speaking Russian to people in Riga?

Maybe she spoke to wrong people (Latvian youth actually know Russian less and less - you generally cannot expect good Russian knowledge from ~25 and younger (Me included )).
In district where I live (Imanta) majority of people are Russians - there would be no strange reactions :P .

Do you know any country in which people...

Estonia
One of reasons also was that Baltic people were not allowed to control immigration in Soviet times - everything was pressured from Moscow - that's why some "containment" was needed afterwards when countries restored their sovereignity. (Remember that Baltic states were occupied illegally - and some of these people moved in houses and apartments, whose previous inhabitants were executed or deported).
People (and their descendants) which were citizens before 1940 were granted citizenship automatically regardless of nationality.