The myth of the” Soviet occupation” began to show cracks at the moment when Euro-integration has depopulated Latvia by half. And it’s not even ethnic Russians who are eager to destroy the myth, but Latvians.
Recent debates among Latvians on the Facebook were set off by Inara Ballade’s post in which she blames the Latvian “patriots” for brainwashing the population.
“It’s disgusting to read this fictional and strained nonsense of the nationalistic maniacs. I was born in the LSSR in 1960. I have never felt any occupation. My parents weren’t members of any party (Communist). I got free education in Latvian, was fluent in Russian and English. I graduated from the Conservatory of Musical Arts for free.
We had a happy childhood, free education, ecologically clean food. We shouldn’t say that our life in the USSR was in vain and unfit for the motherland.”
In addition, this Latvian woman rejecting beliefs in the “Soviet occupation,” reminded his compatriots that they, in fact, are stupid to live in debt.
“You all are poor as a church mouse. While blaming the “occupation,” you have destroyed all the manufacturing and production, you created unemployment, driving out the third of population into voluntary exile. Russian ruble, among other things, was more stable, and ten kopeks could buy you a lot of things. You cannot say the same about centimes”.
I would like to say that IT finally got them. And it is not only about some ordinary woman, but also about more or less sane Latvian politicians.
In February of this year, the former head of the Communist party of the LSSR Alfred Rubiks, who not only successfully fit into the market, but even served as a member of the European Parliament, recalled how much was done under “occupation.”
“In those days, we built thousands apartments a year, which people received for free. Yes, people would have to wait for those apartments, and they were not as chic as modern, but very few can afford these luxury apartments today, anyway. Those who stole from us were engaged in speculation, which is now proudly called business. In Soviet times, people were coming to Latvia to live here and work, and now hundreds of thousands have left the country. At the end of the 80’s Latvia had almost 2.7 million inhabitants, now less than half remains. With this we are approaching centenary of Latvia.”
With what Riga is approaching the centenary of Latvia the European Commission knows perfectly well. Here is the forecast made three years ago, it is still relevant now. Adjustments can be safely made in the direction of deterioration.
“LTV.LV: Troubling statistics published by the Euro Commission shows that by 2060 in Latvia 1/3 of population will be people of 65 and older. Our country in at the top as an actively dying EU member. According to the Euro Commission the population will be reduced by 500.000 people by 2050.”
If Brussels aware of poor Latvian affairs, why don’t they take action? The answer is obvious: Latvia was originally intended to be “eaten.” As other “young democracies” like Bulgaria that is dying out even more rapidly.
Therefore, the EU closes its eyes on all these marches of SS Legionnaires in Riga and other tricks of local nationalistic howling about the “Soviet occupation.” Let them amuse themselves, because 50 years from now Latvia will cease to exist.
Scott Humor,
the Director of Research and Development
My research of the war on Donbass is available at the saker.community book store
The War on Donbass, which is called by the Western politicians and media the “Russian aggression in Ukraine” was a staged psyop.
My illustrated investigation titled Pokémon in Ukraine reveals how this psyop was staged, by whom and why.
After the fall of the USSR, Latvia suffered, as I call it, a “post communist syndrome”. Nobody wanted communism any more, and everybody wanted “democracy”, as they understood it. What this means everybody expected prosperity Western style, as they understood it. Everybody would be super rich, just “like” in the West. They got the opposite, liberal capitalism, where the big cats trampled the small ones. Half the population has fled, and Latvia will one day will cease to exist. It’s is a smaller personification of Ukraine, except that Ukraine in the end will have options, like the bulk of it reuniting with Russia.
I doubt Russia would consider incorporating Ukraine beyond the Donbas. It would be like the head of a household dealing with some economic household stress adopting a dyspeptic, paraplegic distant relative with dementia.
el Gallinazo
Time is the factor, and it’s working in Russians favor. Russians have patience. Eastern and central Ukraine will inevitably join Russia. As for western Ukraine, I doubt Russia is interested in it.
I doubt that Russia will integrate other parts of Ukraine. Russia wants to direct its resources back to science, education and internal infrastructure. It has no appetite for another lost decade due to pampering back to life some former region. Least of all the Ukraine, the former most wealthy USSR region. Let the EU deal with it as they ordered the meal.
Marcel Leutenegger
Yes, I have read analysis of Russia not wishing to reconstruct Ukraine, plundered by it’s oligarchs and supported by Western corporations. The cost would be immense. However, times change. I don’t see Ukraine surviving in it’s present form. It will almost certainly break up into three parts. The reunited parts will have to be reconstructed in due course. However, that is something for a future date. As for the EU, it has lost all faith in Ukraine and money is not coming in.
Just have them join the Eurasian Economic Union then. Their leadership is clearly illegitimate. Move on to a parallel government.
Learn to say CIA, Mi6 London and Washington too. Looking at that article, you have people who think hating Russia is nationalism. It takes a lot of British brainwashing to think that. It’s implied this mindset happened naturally, out of nowhere – a flower bloomed into a turd. No.
@Jerry,
Greetings
“you have people who think hating Russia is nationalism”
According to Charles de Gaulle, it is the case, when he stated:
“Le patriotisme, c’est aimer son pays. Le nationalisme, c’est détester celui des autres.”
Which can be translated as – Patriotism is loving your country. Nationalism is hating that of others.
Another statement attributed to the great Charles “Only the poor are patriotic”
If Russia can present a successful political and economic system to the world, I think this will do more then anything else to change the anti-Russian attitudes in countries such as Latvia, which have failing governments. It will debunk the Western narrative.
Quite opposite.
When Russophobia in the West is getting out of control, you know Russia is doing well.
There was only one period when Russia was seen as a friendly country by the West. The age of drunkard Yeltsin
who allowed western vulture (Browder and Co) and local criminals plunder Russia completely.
Strong, rich and influential Russia is the enemy of the West (and western wannabies such as Latvia), or should we say the main opponent of western imperialistic and hegemonic control of the World. As for Latvia and other Baltic states, is it even worth talking about those small and irrelevant dots which are going to disappear from the world map due to suicidal politics and siding with Russophobic western block.
At the end of the day, a government needs to deliver. If it can’t provide its citizens with a decent standard of living it better have a good excuse. How long can all this anti-Russian propaganda keep Latvians from noticing their miserable condition? Eventually, I think they will hate the system which impoverishes them and associate the propaganda with that system. They will adjust who they believe and who they distrust. I think Russian actions show they tell the truth and perform, at least compared with the West, and that is the best refutation.
Melotte 22,
Fully agree. The western narrative is successfully targeted at the emotions, not the calculating functions of the brain, so people generally will aspire for the advertised (and unrealistic ) sizzle while ignoring their own best interests.
In truth, Edward, we brainwash ourselves by buying into the garbage fed to us. There are many alternatives available but seeking them out requires a bit of thought, experiment and effort. Commitment to the latter is far less common than settling for the spoonfeeding that is on offer everywhere you look.
“As for Latvia and other Baltic states, is it even worth talking about those small and irrelevant dots which are going to disappear from the world map due to suicidal politics and siding with Russophobic western block.”
Where does “Latvia” go after “Latvia” disappears?
Katherine
How about the new Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?
very few can afford these luxury apartments today
If half the population has run off, I wonder why are the apartments still expensive?
Debt, perhaps!
There might be some explainations like money laudering. I have seen advertisings too where foreigners non-EU citizens are encouraged to buy some of these expensive flats and for this they are offered latvian citizenship and per authomatic become EU citizen then.
Well, this looks like kinda a good idea!
I mean, become an Eu citizen by means of buying a flat.
How expensive can they be?
Germany denies me citizenship even though I have two German grandparents and my mother was a forced emigree.
So, it might be easier to enter via the Latvian backdoor than to try to deal with German bureaucracy on the level (which is far too busy dealing with applications for citizenship from migrants, etc., to pay any attention to a bona fide half German!).
Katherine
Katherine
Interesting question.
Real estate is often used for money laundering so the prices may be somewhat distorted. You’ll probably need deep pockets if the prices are in any way representative.
There’s an entire subreddit, https://www.reddit.com/r/LatvianJokes/, devoted to the subject of poor Latvia and their potato. The only language permitted is English, of course, but a poor, broken English intended to add to the general hilarity. Here’s a typical joke:
Potat has lost and tears go down
Once in times old Latvian man was going in the dark. Also very cold. He was near dying, and his wife was near dying, and his doter was near dying, and his son was near dying too. Because of malnutrition.
Then he found potat. Potat was very nice, big tasty potat. Not stone, but real potat. Then old Latvian man was very happy. He think survive, and his wife, doter and son survive. But not.
Politburo come and take away potat, and beaten old man.
Then old man lies on the cold gray stones and tears go down. He understand that he is dying. And his wife, son and doter will also die.
It was very cold. And dark. And no hope.
Looks like half the population currently in Latvia is over 65.
Population- 2.7million. Over age 65- 1/3, i.e. 900,000
Half have left the country, presumably the under 65= (2.7-.9)/2=0.9
Remaining population 900,000 out of 1,800,000.
Would be interesting to know how the country functions, how the services are provided etc.
Must be a good cases study of how an economy with a large elderly population functions. This is where a lot of countries are headed anyway as the population ages like Japan for example. Even China in the next generation.
Depopulation is not a trend specific to Latvia, it is spread across the whole of Europe, especially Eastern Europe. The reasons for this are quite simple. Given the neo-liberal policy of free movement of labour (this in addition to free movement of capital and commodities) has resulted in deindustralisation of all the post-Soviet economies there simply aren’t sufficient reasonable paying jobs around any more. Thus immigration from east to west. Other reasons include the declining birth rate and the rising death rate. Taking Ukraine as an example, the population has fallen from a high point of 52 million in 1991, to 42.5 million at the present time. Interesting to note that this demographic time bomb began in the year of the decline – 1991 – the start of Ukrainian independence and the serial corruption of Kravchuk, Kuchmar, Yuschenko-Tymoshenko (Orange ‘Revolution’), Yanukovic and Poroshenko.
The problem with the former East European Soviet Republics was that they replaced Communism with Socialism(the only difference between the two is the political structure). Now socialism can be said to be worse than communism because it privatises the gains and socialises the loses thus a small number of people get very very rich while the population at large gets poorer and poorer.
Unfortunately it’s hard to erase decades of communist brain washing so quickly so people fell right into the trap of democratic socialism which promisses to be better both politically and economically but actually isn’t.
”Unfortunately it’s hard to erase decades of communist brain washing so quickly so people fell right into the trap of democratic socialism which promisses to be better both politically and economically but actually isn’t.”
But I thought communism was totally hated and that neoliberalism was infallible and invincible. 30 years of neoliberalism and still that communist brainwashing hasn’t been vanquished. Have I been lied to?
The destruction of USSR was a big, advanced, perfect and wonderfully mastered operation “maidan”. No country could resist against that perfect technique, means and huge amount of money. At the beginning the USSR population thought that they could have for free all the unnecessary western gadgets and retaining all the benefits of the social state (free healthcare, pensions, granted jobs, free education, free housing etc.). After a couple of years they understood that they were quckly loosing everything, they were becaming slaves of the big and small oligarchs friends of the West and that the only people to get well with the new system were small and big criminals and gangstes of all kinds. At that time in the (remaining) factories the common workers hoped that the Army did a coup and return everything back to the past. A coup that never came. Pure fantasy of course and was too late. Now former (betrayed) soviet citizen play joyfully with the marvellous and ethernal liberalism and with your western partners and masters and with yours local oligarchs.
It might be of interest to note that when the proposed break-up of the USSR was put to the population in the form of a referendum of March 17 1991 it produced the following result: in an 80% turn out 72% of the electorate voted to preserve the USSR as against the 28% who wanted dissolution. Nothing further to add.
I am very interested in learning more of this referendum. I had no idea one had been held. Is this correct? Links or further info please. (not flaming, I just didn’t know a referendum had been held).
You can look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_referendum,_1991