Mergike - Really sorry I made an incorrect comment about Lithuania. I didn't know much about Lithuania, had more information about Estonia and Latvia, so I should not have said "the Baltics" and include your country when I didn't know for sure.

Also, when I was in Belarus, there were a lot of references to "Great duchy of Lithuania" which had held parts of Belarus for quite a long time - and it seems the Belarussians liked the Lithuanians. I should have remembered that and checked the facts before making a sweeping statement.

I think that what Nulle says makes a lot of sense.
The USSR is still too close in history, and obviously something like being deported to Siberia for 8 years is not something a person simply forgets and forgives in a hurry. Perhaps in another 20 years (if Russian is still alive in Latvia) people will change their mind and agree that it is more fair too add Russian as a second national language. I think it is surprising though, that nobody in the EU has complained about it - in light of the extraordinary lenghts that many people go to, to accommodate language minorities. Wales is a good example.

It's true that the examples I referred too are from further back in history.
That seems to be the reason why people in Western Europe are a bit more tolerant about such things. All the problems are 100 year(s) back in history and nobody who is still alive can remember them - or the problem was not serious enough for anybody to get really worked up: Like the issues with Finnish and Sami languages in Northern Scandinavia.

Just this morning I saw a Latvian and Lithuanian family speak Russian with each other at breakfast in this hotel. First I thought that they were both Russian, but then I heard what they were talking about and realised they were both Baltic.

Perhaps it's impossible for me to understand how you feel about this. I think I have said everything I have to say about it, and I will leave the subject alone.