Canada Day in Latvia

Hey ho! Long time between posts but it's hard not to say something about my home country on it's birfday today so here goes.

Established as a country in 1867 Canada is now 146 years old. Yea! I've celebrated Canada day in a bunch of countries since I became an Expat, not that I do it religiously or anything but any excuse to drink before noon I say! But I do carry around a honking big flag in my backpack to fly in solidarity on these occasions. In Latvia it's usually on the beach. Only this year sucks hard and today it is raining so furiously there is nothing I can do so I settled for purchasing a ridiculously expensive bottle of supposedly imported Canadian Maple Syrup to temporarily replace the Latvian honey I normally slather on everything. I hope it isn't fake, the Maple Syrup. Latvian honey is almost universally doctored unless you know where to purchase it.

What do I miss about Canada the most? Let me see ,,, ;

1) A well established civil society with uniformly enforceable laws. It doesn't exist here in Latvia yet in spite of what folks might say. You will never notice if you are a tourist hopping off a Ryan Air flight or a ferry in the port but Latvia is an impossible place to do transparent business and unfriendly to boot. A country with a declining population of now less than 2 million it seems that everyone knows everyone and foreigners are still red meat. Riga I can deal with but outside of Riga it gets nasty. Latvia is not a comfortable place to live and work. Eight years experience talking here folks.

2) The friendliness of Canadians. It's almost embarrassing and a well worn out joke outside of the country but I hope we never lose that civility (oops! my bad). You may not notice it until you leave the Motherland for some period of time but let me assure you that we Canadians are just freakishly nice in a cauldron of not nice. Never be shy about being nice homies! When I lived in Tokyo it was respected as they have a very ordered society and nice counts a lot. Except when I was getting kicked out of bars/restaurants because they thought I was Russian. Anyway, Be Nice!

3) Universal Health care bitches! I had both knees replaced here in Latvia at an out of pocket cost of CAN 10,000 without rehab and I can tell you that it hurt our bottom line in a big way. Still, for perspective, we have an old lady renter who recently suffered a mini stoke and spent 5 days in hospital receiving a bill of 150 EUR when she got out. Her pension is about 250/month and she was reduced to living on potatoes and cucumbers for three weeks so we gave her money for food and forgave her rent (paying ourselves basically) which is where that "Canadian Nice" comes in. Most everyone we know laughed at us. Anyway...

4) Canada is a land of immigrants. We know it and we celebrate it which is currently in stark contrast to our friends to the south and, quite frankly, here. Word to the wise, if you are going to sell Residence Permits in order to tweak your real-estate sector which is wholly owned and controlled by ex-Soviet apparatchiks and the current glut of Brussels office seeking politicos then open the door to citizenship wider. Just saying.

5) This is a questionable one but I include it because it haunts me so! Red meat. We just don't eat red meat anymore. Or even pork. That may just be a combination of locale and the influence of Mrs. T who is a closet vegetarian but beef just isn't a big thing here and pork wears thin real quick. That came as a real shock to me as Alberta was my home before fleeing Canada and huge BBQ's heavy with all manner of beef products was the norm. I can't even eat a full steak anymore as my stomach just rebels and it bothers me so as the brain continues with it's demands to "consume the fucking steak you pansy!" I miss bacon as well.

6) Personal vehicle. This is actually a big one for me! OK sure, there are lots of places in Canada where you can exist without a vehicle but outside of most well established urban centres it's just impossible, Canada is just too big and spread out to make it without even the crappiest of transportation, as long as it can pass a vehicle inspection you are good to go. Public transportation in the EU is so well established by Canadian metrics that one can exist quite nicely without a vehicle which may free up funds for other things, like new knees, but it does nothing for the ego. I miss my car/4X4 truck/bike. Really miss them! Yes I can walk to the train station from my flat in exactly two minutes with eighteen minutes travel putting me in the Riga central station where another eight minute walk puts me on a tram to almost the door of my office but, it's just not the same as rolling up to a parking space with my own personal vehicle. I like the freedom of public transportation but I miss the empowering aspect of owning my own fossil fuel guzzling iron behemoth. I find myself becoming plugged up with frustration and feelings of inadequacy. My penis is perfectly normal, just so you know.

7) Endless aisles of food and stuff, consumer central! I mean hell, when last in Winnipeg I could hit my remote start from the comfort of the kitchen and 10 minutes later after wasting a gallon of carbon laden fuel idling the van just to get into my warm  "personal vehicle" and drive all of five minutes down to the Super Store and find just about anything I needed whether it be live lobster or powdered Voodoo Anti-Zombie Essence®. Whut? 21 long aisles of dry produce last time I was there not counting the fresh baked goods/fresh vegetable produce/dairy/dead animal sections. Then there was the clothing/appliance/pharmacy/optometrist, etc...etc... and it's not even considered a mall! All under one roof! To be fair they have places somewhat like that here, called Spice and Stockman and so forth but they have no real choices. Sad face, :(

8) Fellow Canadians. Last time I checked the official Latvian statistical web portal there were a total of 43 Canadians who had received Residence status. It's a small group and I don't know any of them. Not that I've reached out but whatever.

9) Rob Ford. Oh, wait!

10) Clamato® dudes! Look, get in touch with me, seriously. Eating a pickle with my vodka is killing me!

The Beach Was A Bitch

What can I say. After +20℃ last week it was only +9℃ today! Still, the beach was all mine and it's about the best thing I like about Latvia.

We, Mrs. T & I, walk from Majori to Bulduri about every chance we get. This is part of my rehab as concerns my knee surgeries. It's about three km.

This is when you hit the beach at Majori and will eventually be called Club Habana or something. It's a noisy shit hole catering to the elites and specifically the NewWave music puke-a-thon.

I hate the NewWave thing. 

Continuing down the beach from Majori towards Buldari one runs across this hotel which is called The Lighthouse or some such. I wonder how many bribes were paid to get a permanent structure constructed right on the beach. Many?

But for sure not as many as Parex bank paid to get this fucking horror constructed! There's a big story behind it if you want to Google but essentially it's owned by the state now I think. No one knows what to do with it. I heard it's rented out for meetings and stuff but I don't think it's really utilized that much. There's always some guy wandering around the property, caretaker or something. Not a bad gig I figure.

But once you get past that monstrosity which is pretty much at Bulduri you are home free. It's pretty much quiet from there to Priedaine and beyond which is where I hide when the summer rush picks up and that horrid music festival destroys the peace.

But keep it to yourself, ok?

Latvia Finally Gets It's Troops

About Time I figure. Hopefully Latvia can capitalize on this opportunity to pick up some training and possibly equipment. Balls in your court oh great and all knowing Latvian politicians. ;)

US troops land in Latvia amid Ukraine crisis

Riga (AFP) - Latvia on Friday welcomed American troops on its soil, part of a US force of 600 sent to the region to reassure the Baltic states amid concern over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

"Today is a special day because this morning I met the heads of the armed forces at the Adazi military base and greeted the US military unit that arrived this morning for military training," Latvian Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma told reporters.

Some 150 troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade will be based at the Adazi base near capital Riga until at least the end of the year, according to the Latvian defence ministry.

Another company of soldiers arrived in Poland on Wednesday, while around 150 others are each expected in Lithuania on Saturday and Estonia early next week.

Washington on Tuesday said it was sending the 600 troops to the region to increase its presence in the region and reassure its NATO allies and partners.

Estonian Prime Minister Taavi Roivas, who was visiting Latvia on Thursday, welcomed the gesture, saying: "We are strong together".

"I am glad that today our allies arrived here on Latvian soil and this shows that the NATO alliance is there for us," he said after talks with Straujuma.

How To Create A 5th Column in Latvia

Stateless in Riga

Published on Monday, 31 March 2014 11:50

Written by Ruben Martinez

 

Ruben Martinez is a freelance journalist based in Riga, Latvia and has collaborated with different international media in both Spanish and English.

This article originally appeared in New Eastern Europe issue 1/2013: Can Russia Really Change?

Walking quietly around the cobbled streets of Riga’s old town, Zanna explains to a group of tourists about the particularities of the Art Nouveau style that adorn many of the facades of the buildings in Latvia’s capital city. For many years now, this 71-year-old woman has worked as a tour guide for Russian visitors in the country where she was born after her father, who was born in Russia, was sent to the Baltic shore to fight the Germans in the Second World War. Zanna, born in 1941, never knew her father. He set off for the war one day and never made it back. 

Facing reality was tough for her family after such a loss, but they opted to stick together and stay in Latvia. They had no one waiting for them back in Russia. Life was all about surviving in the western part of the yet to be vast Soviet empire. Many years have passed since then, but in her voice there are still shades of many bittersweet moments of her life. Zanna reflects on her mother’s efforts to build a reasonable a comfortable life in Latvia, and how all that changed from one day to the next.

Second class citizens

Recalling the day the country regained its independence, Zanna says, “I literally went from being an average citizen to being on some kind of a blacklist; I became a second-class citizen of the country where I was born.”

Many people took part in the 1991 referendum on re-establishing the country’s independence, even those ethnic Russians who were either sent to Latvia to work or, like Zanna, born in the country when it was a part of the Soviet Union. They represented as many as 715,000 people in a country of little more than two million inhabitants. The restoration of the 1922 constitution was among the first measures the newly elected government of Latvia implemented, and individuals who were citizens of the country as of June 17th 1940 were once again recognised as Latvian citizens along with their descendants. All those who didn’t fit this description were given a “non-citizen of Latvia” status, limiting their rights at the social and political level in the newly re-established independent republic. This action left contradictory feelings in those left behind, turning their lives upside down, and the 71-year-old Zanna recalls one example: “My family was given 30 per cent less privatisation certificates than Latvian-born people, limiting our right to privatise our apartment. For me it has always been clear about what happened –they improved the lives of the others at our expense.”

 

During the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the path to citizenship was blocked for this large community, leaving them in a sort of limbo. Only in 1995 did the Latvian government pass the law on the status of the citizens of the former USSR, making naturalisation an option for them. However, annual quotas and so-called windows were imposed for the next three years, which limited both the number and sort of people who could apply for Latvian citizenship.

Latvia’s “non-citizens” represent a unique status never seen before at the international level. They are former citizens of the USSR, individuals who are neither citizens of Latvia nor of any other country. Theycannot vote in any type of elections, nor actively participate in Latvia’s political life. They can't work in the public sector nor work in certain private businesses, and their pension rights are restricted.

Failed referendum

Today, around 315,000 of these non-citizens live in Latvia (14 per cent of the entire population), down from approximately 715,000 in 1991. The data is still relevant for such a small country of just 2 million inhabitants, and after two decades of ups and downs, the non-citizens’ community seems to have finally taken the initiative to try to achieve a change in their situation. Last September, the social movement For Equal Rights submitted over 12,000 signatures to the Central Election Commission (CEC) in order to initiate a referendum to grant full citizenship to all Latvia’s non-citizens. The bill submitted by the petitioners stipulates that all non-citizens of Latvia who do not apply to keep their status of non-citizens by November 30th 2013 would be automatically granted Latvian citizenship on January 1st 2014. The CEC, however, decided that the second round of signature collection for staging a referendum, which would have needed petitioners to gather at least 10 per cent of voters’ signatures (approximately 150,000 signatures), couldn’t proceed for technical reasons.

The Latvian authorities welcomed the decision, and then-Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis said that the CEC’s decision was based on the incompatibility of the bill with the country’s constitution and believes that it should contribute to defusing inter-ethnic tensions in Latvian society. Officials also stated that the automatic granting of citizenship to non-citizens would contradict the European Union’s security standards, being also discriminatory to those who had already been naturalised.

Nevertheless, the initiative has already shaken the political arena in the country, with Latvia’s president, Andris Bērziņš, saying during an interview previous to the CEC’s decision, that “automatic citizenship for non-citizens is not the right solution, although I believe that the problem requires an urgent solution.”

Evolution

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and Amnesty International describe non-citizens of Latvia as stateless persons, belonging to a state that does not exist anymore. However, under Latvian law, they are long-term residents of the country who are neither citizens of Latvia nor any other country. Tatjana Ždanoka, Parliamentarian and co-chairperson of For Human Rights in United Latvia, maintains that what happened in Latvia was “a clear division by origins”, adding that parliament, “elected by all the people, deprived a large number of the country’s citizens of some rights. Basically, it was the creation of apartheid.”

 

Such comparison could be dangerous, but clearly illustrates the bitter feelings, especially for Ždanoka, who has made non-citizens’ rights one of her main political pillars. Over the years, the situation of these people has been evolving, in part, thanks to international pressure when the country joined the EU and NATO back in 2004. Nils Muižnieks, a Latvian human rights activist and since April 2012 Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, believes that the citizenship law has not really worked: “It has not promoted integration and participation, and the majority of politicians are not very concerned about the situation. In fact, some are quite satisfied with how things are.”

The Latvian authorities believe that time has given them the reason. Latvian culture and language are stronger than they were 20 years ago, and the small Baltic country has been able to get on to its feet after the collapse of the Soviet Union. “I truly believe that there have been no big mistakes at the political level over the last two decades,” Roberts Zīle says. The Latvian economist and member of parliament, who served as Minister of Finance from 1997 to 1998 and Minister of Communications from 2002 to 2004, considers non-citizenship to be a non-issue. “We would not have become an EU member state if we had not fulfilled the legal framework on citizenship. Being a non-citizen poses no obstacles to work and contributing to the development of the country, and I think the issue has been over exaggerated many times,” Zīle adds.

However, the numbers speak for themselves; around 14 per cent of Latvia’s population has the words “alien” and “non-citizen” printed in their passports. Such a large figure proves that it is a large and diverse community which includes an important number of elderly people, youngsters, and children. Alex Krasnitsky, a journalist born in Riga, says he feels “cheated by all Latvian politicians who do not represent us,” and notes that everyone was promised citizenship during the “awakening period” of the late 1980s and early 1990s. “At the social level there is no such problem between citizens and non-citizens, but I believe we have been used politically many times. I love my country, but sometimes I have felt alone and isolated from a political point of view. To be honest, I think we have been forgotten over the years,” Krasnitsky adds.

Naturalisation 

Non-citizens have been offered the opportunity to naturalise since 1995. More than 135,000 people have taken advantage of this opportunity proving that they had lived in Latvia for at least five years and knew the country’s constitution, language, history and national anthem. Death rates and migration movements have also contributed to bringing down the numbers of non-citizens in Latvia. Today, however, naturalisation rates are very low, while the number of non-citizens applying for other citizenships, mostly Russian, has increased slightly. There are reasons to explain this phenomenon: poor knowledge of the Latvian language, especially among older people, and a lack of motivation.

“Naturalisation is acynical procedure introduced at the beginning of the 1990s,” 24-year-old student Aleksandrs Filejs says. “I was born in Riga, so why should I pass an exam to acquire citizenship of my own country? I believe it should be given to me automatically.” Filejs, a highly active polyglot – speaking Latvian, Russian, French, German and Spanish – mentions “a moral discomfort” when talking about the right to vote in Latvian elections.

The case of Yuri Petropavlovsky is unique. His naturalisation application coincided with the education reform protests that took place in Latvia in 2004, when hundreds of ethnic Russians took to the streets claiming their right to be taught at school in their native language. Born and raised in Latvia, he passed the naturalisation exams, but the government revoked his citizenship after considering him disloyal to the country. In 2006 he took his case before the European Court for Human Rights after being told that in Latvia “political decisions of the government are not under the influence of the Latvian Court system.” He expects to have a positive resolution in the near future, although he says that it would only be “the end of a small battle”. 

Language

However, the naturalisation process also has its positive sides. Nadzezhda lives with her husband, a non-citizen, and their daughter who has citizenship as she was born in independent Latvia. Tired of feeling like an outsider in the country where she lives and having to deal with endless procedures when travelling, Nadzezhda naturalised because she wanted to be a “full-right citizen of Latvia, take part in the social and political life of the country and freely travel around Europe”. She had to take the naturalisation exam twice as she failed to prove her fluency in the Latvian language the first time around. “When I passed the exam, I felt very confident in myself for achieving something I had very much longed for,” Nadzezhda says. Like her, most young non-citizens were either born in the country or had their education in Latvian. Elderly people, however, struggle to speak the Latvian, mainly because they can get around only speaking Russian and refuse to learn the language after living for many years in the country.

Language poses a key element for the integration of such a large community whose mother tongue is mostly Russian. Svetlana Djačkova, a social and human rights researcher at the Latvian Centre for Human Rights, says that the state should take more steps to further promote naturalisation, and believes that there is a “lack of political will to promote social integration” in Latvia. “International observers have advised easing some of the naturalisation procedures for social groups such as the elderly in terms of language. However, there is a lack of dialogue between the state, experts and minorities,” Djačkova adds.

Voting

After non-citizens were granted visa free travel throughout the Schengen Area and Russia, the debate on how to further promote the integration process of these people has focused on one of the most important democratic rights: the right to vote and participate in politics; something that is sometimes taken for granted in Western Europe. 

Nils Muižnieks points out that “people learn democracy through participation and Latvia doesn’t see the drawbacks of having such a large community of non-citizens … to promote participation and have their rights represented, you have to promote naturalisation and voting rights at the local level.” 

The Latvian political elite doesn’t share such an approach. “Can you tell me of a country where non-citizens can vote in national elections? I don’t know of any,” argues Roberts Zīle, who also adds: “If you want to be politically active, you have to be a citizen, and the doors are open for everybody. There are no quotas or so-called windows as there used to be.”

Latvia took important steps to address the situation of its non-citizens prior its accession to the European Union, but once the country became a member state, the problem was moved to the very bottom of the list of political priorities. International pressure and therefore political will have disappeared, and the EU, which says that citizenship issues belong to the internal affairs of individual countries, limits its position. 

Meanwhile, Russia has not contributed positively to finding a solution to the problem. Taking into account that these non-citizens are mostly ethnic Russians who were either born or sent to the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic during the time of the Soviet Union, the messages sent from the Kremlin have been everything but helpful, calling for external interference and for non-citizens to believe that their situation in Latvia, and that of the Russian language, would change. 

So while Latvia has achieved important goals during these 20 years, non-citizens have not. They may have got used to their status, but as long as they cannot vote and lack representation at the political level, the social integration process will not go forward in the country. Democracy sometimes doesn’t mean fairness, and while some people promise to keep fighting for this cause, the battle for the hearts and minds is yet to be won by Latvia.

 

Coming Back Around

This site. It's coming back. I can walk well enough now to use public transit and I'm healthy enough to drink before noon so it should be easy enough to start writing about the things I see in this country of Latvia and not just what I hear or read, which has been bad enough. I suspect I'm about to become persona non grata in Russia soon so the scope of this blog may narrow somewhat.

Plus I'm supposed to be a contributing blogger to newsWave so I better get something done on that front as well before I get fired from another non-paying gig, heaven forfend.

Anyway, lets leave off with a little not so subtle message for everyone, shall we?

 

Cruise Ship Silja Festival Arrives In Vancouver For Renovations

A cruise ship from the Baltic Sea has sailed into B.C., on its way to being turned into a floating hotel for construction workers in Kitimat.

The Silja Festival, which once carried passengers from Sweden to Latvia, arrived in Vancouver's harbour on Saturday night. It will undergo an extreme makeover before it sails to northern B.C. to house 600 people working on $3.3 billion in upgrades to the Rio Tinto Alcan aluminum smelter.

The 171-metre ship, which will be renamed the Delta Spirit Lodge, has been leased by Bridgemans Services and the Haisla Nation to provide housing. Rio Tinto's current work camp is already full and there's shortage of rental homes in Kitimat. The community is booming with growth in resource industries, and its population could explode if several proposed liquefied natural gas projects are approved.

Poverty advocates say the housing demand is creating "renovictions," when landlords evict tenants to upgrade their units and then hike their rent, reported CBC News.

A renovated rental suite in Kitimat was advertised at $3,200 per month, compared to $425 per month more than a year ago, said CBC.

Pastor Don Read, with the Kitimat Ministerial Association, spoke at a recent Kitimat city council meeting and suggested property developers are being greedy, reported the Northern Sentinel.

Kitimat housing worker Anne Moyles told the CBC people are being forced to move out of the community because they can't find an affordable place to live.

The ship, which spent 40 days travelling from the Baltic Sea, through the Panama Canal and up the West Coast, will be cleaned and retrofitted by 150 workers in the next week or so at Seaspan's dry dock in North Vancouver.

The total cost for the voyage and renovations to the "flotel" is forecast at more than $4 million, said a news release on Sunday. An additional $1 million in food will be loaded onto the ship before it heads to Kitimat.

Dazed and Confused

It may have not escaped my loyal readers attention that after promising to tell the tale of my recent hospitalization I failed to do so! There are very good reasons for that folks.

It has to do with drugs, as so many things do nowadays amirite!?

After my knee replacement surgery, a fairly traumatic operation I think you will agree, I was sent home with a small box of skittles which had childishly scrawled on top in three different crayon colors, "painkillers." They surprised me with their ineffectiveness even though all the medical professionals proclaimed them to be good skittles and adequate to the task at hand. But still I was forced after a week of no sleep and mounting insanity to abuse some rather hefty sleeping pills I had acquired through true and trusty methods in an attempt to get the rest I so sorely needed by that time and flee the pain. So, triple the dose under the tongue at bedtime and start counting the hallucinations which began appearing immediately in many and varied a form. Hey, hows it hanging Freddy!?

But, I woke up in the morning right as rain if not still a little wobbly and decided to beat Mrs. T. into the kitchen and prepare breakfast as a surprise. The surprise came in the form of me losing my balance and Mrs. T. finding her husband crumpled and shrieking on the floor not able to lie still, stand upright or stop with the grunting noises that occasionally returned to shrieks.

After much shrieking (me) Mrs. T. was able to haul my carcass onto the couch where later I was able to make it to the bed by following along the wall. Now I'm hooped! Not only a gimp leg but now a twisted back and the bottle of sleeping pills dwindling fast. So what to do? Phone emergency services of course!

They showed up in no time, ahem, having been to my place once before to haul me away to hospital with an acute attack of the kidney stones which had the disconcerting affect of actually turning my eyes yellow.

Two younger EMT ladies who have seen a lot;

1- it's him again

2- what is it this time, his eyes are rolling all over the place again

1- i understand it's a Canadian thing, they like to look behind themselves to take note of the trail

2- ?

1- ...you talk to him this time

2-the hell, i'll talk to his wife...she seems normal. Nu?

They couldn't believe that I questioned the potency of the clinic supplied skittles but knew there was no arguing with these effete Westerners so a gauge #29 syringe of "horse" to the glutinous maximus was indicated and I was soon galloping with my trusty steed across a pristine summer beach.

1- are they all like that?

Mrs. T.- most are worst

2- fooo....