Thread: Языковая обстановка в Латвии и др.

Russian is regarded as a foreign langua

Russian is spoken by a large part of the population. It is very unfair that it's not an official language.

That's Latvians who consider Russia to be an enemy.

After Georgian war in 2008 there is a good reason to worry about that.

Originally Posted by Marcus

Russian is spoken by a large part of the population. It is very unfair that it's not an official language.

This opinion I agree with. I think the Russian speakers have a responsibility to make an effort at being good Latvian citizens, including with the language etc. But I think it would be more fair if Russian was acknowledged as an official language or a minority language in the country in recognition of the actual situation in the country. As it is, old people could buy medicine that they can't understand the instructions for, or people might be in danger because they can't understand warning signs. Plus it is a courtesy! Finland is a good example. Sweden "occupied" Finland for a few hundred years and for that reason there have always been native Swedish speakers there. It's only about 15% of the population, but they can get everything they need in Swedish, and when I go there, I can always feel comfortable about reading signs and important information. Anyway, it's cool to be a bilingual country! It enriches the country a lot.

About the Georgia invasion:
There is definitely another side to that story. I think the reporting in European media was relatively one sided. A few months afterwards, even British media realised this and ran some "other side of the story" articles. Russia wouldn't just invade the Baltics for no reason, Nato or not They were there during WW2 to fight the Nazis and then I suppose just took advantage of the situation.

I completely agree with the ideas which nulle expressed there it's a real truth Lithuanians also do not celebrate 9th of May. It would be just terrible to celebrate that day because since it our hopes to be independent was almost completely burried.
Anyway, while reading this forum thread I started to think why Russians are still staying and living in Latvia if life there for them is so bad and they are so much discriminated there?
And, Markus, I think that it's actually very fair that Russian isn't official language in Latvia, because Latvians, the same way like Lithuanians, Estonians or any other nation in the world have their own language, so for them there is no need to make Russian their official language.
Talking about interaction between Baltic countries I wouldn't say that it's very huge and active, it might be better But anyway, at least we Lithuanians really like other Baltic countries and most of us have very possitive attitude towards Latvia and Estonia. We even usually call them our brothers. So, I think that these Baltic countries can allways expect support from Lithuania no matter what would happen.
And one more thing. I guess it's really a good thing that when Lithuania regained independence Russia took Kaliningrad region for themselves... If they didn't do that, then there would be a huge minority of Russians in Lithuania who would start blaming us that we are nationalists, or that weare discriminating Russian minority in Lithuania as they are doing now in Latvia... really it would be just another headache.