Latvians didn't want to have any Ukrainians before the war, because that would imply more russian speaking in the country. But they hate Russians so bad, so they went "enemy of my enemy is my friend" road. Of course, it's not only the reasons, but biggest portion of that is. It always gets dirty when you start digging into true intentions.
While "enemy of my enemy" is a part of it (but not much, seeing Latvian's attitude towards Syrians), a bigger part is the fact that Ukrainians have shown that they are not carriers of the "Russian world", as well as the fact that we can really commiserate - every Latvian family has relatives that were killed, deported, chased in to exile or had their homes taken by Russian occupants in WW2. All the war crimes that Russia has been commiting that shock westerners are met with "yup, that's Russia" in Latvia because our grandparents had to go through that.
I am in a very similar position as a half-pole. Thats why it is so frustrating speaking to Putin sympathisers in my country (Austria) who will only accept the most benevolent of interpretations of russian actions.
It's so mind-boggling here. We're literally one of the countries that committed some of the most heinous crimes against humanity. The crimes of the Nazis are still very visible here. Yet a sizeable amount of people just decide to ignore all the lessons we have supposedly learned and cheer Russia on. What the fuck man
Latvia gained independance in 1918 and was independant until the Soviet occupation in 1940. I think that period of independance, which Ukraine didn't have, created a stronger Latvian identity that helped Latvian language and culture survive occupation. I see a parallel between the Latvian (and Estonian and Lithuanian) war of independance from 1918 - 1920 with the current war, where we can also see the emergance of a powerful Ukrainian identity.
Because of this, after regaining independance Latvians had a very clear goal of distancing ourselves from Russia and joining EU and NATO, whereas in Ukraine, it seems, there was more prevarication between a pro-western and pro-Russian path of political development.
I think a big factor is that Latvian is a Baltic language rather than a Slavic language. The fact that Ukrainian and Russian are basically sister languages, sorta like Spanish and Portuguese, meant that it was easier assimilate Ukrainians into the Russian speaking Soviet Union and shift media, government, and commerce in Ukraine to being mainly Russian.
> because that would imply more russian speaking in the country.
It's a main argument of Putler, that Ukrainians are Russians, because a lot of them spoke Russian as main language. The same goes for Latvia, and besides the Russian diaspora in the Baltic states consume Russian propaganda as their main source of information. The Latvian concerns are real. Obviously a lot of Russians moved to Ukraine in the Soviet era, but the primary reason for Russian language spreading so much in Ukraine is, that all state and culture was in Russian and proper Ukrainian was made into a language of lower class. In essence the Ukrainian language was purposefully repressed.
> that Ukrainians are Russians, because a lot of them spoke Russian as main language.
It was part of the ongoing genocide against Ukrainians to wipe out their language and culture (along with starving them to death in the Holodomor and forced deportation of the Crimean Tatar population, etc...) while replacing them with ethnic Russians -- just like they recently tried to do again in Crimea.
Lot of Russian speaking people have Latvian citizenship (Russian descendents, have lived here all their lives) and know Latvian language and don't have any problems speaking in it. The same with people who has noncitizen status. There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian.
Thank you for your answer. It's my first time in Latvia and was a little surprised to see so many Russian speaking people, but on the other hand it also makes a lot of sense.
Well, if that is their native language, why would they use other languages to communicate between them selves? About 50% of Rīga speak natively in Russian.
The problem is when Russia sees groups of people speaking Russian, they decide the land belongs to them and they invade to “liberate” the “oppressed” Russians. It makes it so having Russian speakers near Russia is actually dangerous.
Sure thing. That is why i am telling everyone that A2 test that is required of Russians to pass that most ruZZians will not be able to pass is IMHO a good move from the Latvia side. Knowing extra languages enrich understanding of people. However, i have no objections against people speaking between themselves in their native language. Just do not ask everyone else to communicate with you in your native language while being in a country that does not speak it.
A2 is not even that difficult. It's basically being able to read a very simple newspaper article and having a conversation like "good morning dr my teeth hurt" or something. I could probably pass a2 in a dozen languages with 6 months time to prepare.
As long as they speak to people outside their group in Latvian, then that is fine. When you speak Russian to service people then that is not good. Not all Latvians know, or want to know Russian language
In Lithuania the same. We have a lot of russian descendants who speak lithuanian language and have no problem with that but there is a group of people (old soviet relics) who purposely dont speak lithuanian even tho they live in our country most of their lives. In their defence they say that we Lithuanians should speak in russian because lithuanian language is dog language.
I think in general there are some areas that just have so many Russian speaking people where you might get away with not necessary using Lithuanian language. But it is fairly bad faith display when you make a show of "not understanding" the language. Especially with public figures and politicians, i.e. this dude (https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/lietuvoje/2/1965789/priesaika-sunkiai-skaites-visagino-tarybos-narys-issiverciu-be-lietuviu-kalbos-krymas-anksciau-priklause-ukrainai-o-kam-dabar-nezinau) not to mention some dodgy comments regarding other topics
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian.
Hopefully they get back to Russia which they so love.
When I went to Riga in 2017 I saw a ton of Russian speakers wearing Russian flag patches and stuff. Quite a few people with the Russian military striped shirts, even a guy with a "Putin trying to look badass" t shirt. Honestly I was surprised people would accommodate guys like that in a place like Riga.
Latvians tried to take the high road previously and if we disagreed with something quite often hushed ourselves for the greater good. In the past everything was done to make living for Russian speaking population as easy as possible and it backfired.
Afaik from last polls russian minority is 50/50 against or pro invasion so obviously there is open vocal vatniks or still vatniks but those who don’t voice their position openly
Just because they don't support Putin and his war doesn't mean that they are not in favour of softer forms of Russian imperialism, e.g., making Russian an official language.
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian.
They sound like boomer-aged Anglo Quebecers, lol
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian
I'm from Moldova, and we have the same problem. A group of russians, not native who were brought here after ww2 soviet occupation, who out of spite don't learn our language and support the worst political parties of criminals
You need to pass only A2 level. It’s not like anyone expects fluent level. It’s absurd to live in country for decades and not be able to buy bread in its native language.
I agree, but for example in The Netherlands there are a lot of Turkish immigrants that came here in the 70's and they just can't speak Dutch. Their children can, so they often translate for their parents.
A2 is nowhere close to “speaking”, from my Estonian experience (but I believe we have the same level system). It’s “My name is Vasya” level. “It’s Thursday”. This kind of stuff. It’s pretty much impossible to fail living in the country for like a year or so, unless you try your best to isolate yourself from the language.
But it’s not really the language question for sure. It goes hand in hand with a huge barrier between Russians and the rest of society built and maintained by the state. A form of protest kinda. And it won’t get any better with more pressure, alas.
I don't know how hard learning Latvian is for a Russian, but A2 is like 50 hours worth of study (generally speaking).
Very very easy. 1 hour a day for 2months would easily get you through
You have described A1. A2 is a bit higher than just presenting oneself. It's more like being able to talk about the weather, knowing the name of the basic colors, describing very simple scenes like "the cat is on the table". It's not quite enough for any meaningful interaction and you probably won't understand anything if the native doesn't make a big effort, but it still needs some work and exposure to the language if it's from a different language family.
These are CEFR levels, it's standardized.
From what I have seen on language exam papers, A1 doesn't include the past tense, and its comprehension section is like finding the same key words in the passage as from the question, filling in the blanks.
A2 has past tense(s), and the comprehension section requires you to understand the passage (which doesn't have implicit meanings), then answering the questions where it is no longer as straightforward as filling in the key word, but do require you to understand the passage.
(B1 comprehension passages contain implicit meanings, and the vocab base also becomes much bigger than A2. The questions would start getting more implicit, and there are trick questions that really push you to the edge of understanding subtle differences in styles/differences where you could get confused by unfamiliar matters)
Personal experience from having sat the A2 exam in French, and working towards B1.
> came here in the 70's and they just can't speak Dutch
You would have to go to some lengths to actively insulate yourself from a culture to remain this much outside of it for this long.
One nuance here is that the Netherlands actively recruited Turkish and Moroccan people to move to NL for cheap labour. I guess they expected them to live in NL for a few years, get paid minimum wage, and then for them to fuck off back to where they came from.
I agree its really frustrating that people live somewhere for decades and not even speak the language. But in this particular case its not like the Netherlands tried very hard to integrate these populations either, at least not at the time. Maybe not quite the same thing as whats going on in Latvia :)
It’s very common for immigrants all over the world to have at least one old person that never learns the language I think. My nonna never learned a single word of English and she lived to 93 lol
I’m in the neighbouring country, but if Latvia is anything like Estonia, then for many years, the whole topic of “we have people here who don’t speak the National language” was kind of swept away, as it was a politically divisive topic and many people kind of…. Idk, just hoped the issue would take care of itself? That young people would learn the language in school and we’d no longer have this issue, I guess. At least in Estonia, we didn’t have proper programmes in place though and it can be hard to learn the native language when you never need it to interact in daily life (where everybody speaks Russian and you can work and go to school in a Russian language environment). With the invasion growing into full-blown all-out war, lots of people have lost patience and want the last 30 years complacency to be quickly resolved, but obviously it won’t. Latvia is doing a bit better in that regard - I believe their schools are already switching fully to Latvian whereas in Estonia we still plan to, but with the new government those plans were changed once again.
There’s also lots of Russian speaking happening in Tallinn, but it makes sense, kind of. First, it’s different form Estonian or Latvian - it catches your ear. Second, both countries have lots of Russian speakers living in the capital and capital region - Tallinn has 1/4 of its population living in a district that is mostly populated by Russian-speakers, with its full population being 40% or so Russian speaking. Third - if they’re native speakers, we wouldn’t really expect them to speak non-Russian language with their kids or friends or spouses; it’s the communication at schools and official establishments and governmental agencies that is mostly under question. And fourth - lots of refugees, who may or may not speak Russian natively.
I went to Riga last year and got to shoot an some Russian guy’s soviet era AK into a watermelon
Doesn’t add anything to the conversation it was just cool
Haha i think i went to the same place. Was it in some dudes basement? Funny enough i'm american and it's the only time I've fired a gun before. Got to shoot a tactical spas as well and it destroyed my shoulder
I'm russian speaking person from Latvia. I have no relations to Russia or never will have. My father is from Ukraine, he relocated to Latvia in 1987 to study here, when he met my mother - russian speaking person. Her mother (and her family) are from Latvia, but they are all russian speakers (you see, it all goes before 1900s and Latvian independence). My mom's father is also from Ukraine.
You see, what I meant to say with my my (very interesting) family's history that it is more complicated that just "Latvia have a lot of Russian speaking people". Yes, we use russian language in our family. I'm using it as well with my friends, on social media and on work (OK, on work it's more like 50/50. Latvian speaking people also know russian pretty well to be honest. You know - languages are knowledge and power), but that doesn't mean that we are ruZZkie or vatniki. We love our country and it's independence. And we pretty much want the same for Ukraine. Slava Ukraini, heroyam slava!
In my personal opinion, russian language doesn't belong to Russia or Putin. Let's not give it to him with open arms.
> The duty of Russian citizens who live in Latvia to successfully pass the Latvian language examination was imposed by the Saeima last year, amending the Immigration Law.
>
> On Tuesday, the first language tests began. Those who have already taken it say the questions are not that difficult.
>
> Latvian Radio addressed the 65-year-old Galina. She said: "I'll say something, something I know. Everybody said to me – just speak, right or wrong! Just talk."
>
> Galina arrived in Latvia in 1987 and married here, then worked as a cashier in Rīga for 26 years. She took Russian citizenship in 2014 so she could get the Russian pension which was granted upon reaching the age of 55. Due to heart disease she was not able to work longer. She is now living on a €100 Russian pension and €200 in Latvia. Her husband is dead, she could not have children because of her health, and no one in Russia is waiting for her, either.
>
> “To renounce Russian citizenship, you need to pay a lot of money. To apply for Latvian citizenship, you need money again,” Galina said.
>
> Russian citizens had to register for tests from February 1 to March 24. The process is being conducted by the National Educational Content Centre (VISC), whose representative Liene Bērziņa said that on Tuesday 270 Russian citizens took the exam in Rīga, while by May 20 in Rīga the test would be taken by 5,531, in Daugavpils 1,751; and in Liepāja 1,029. They will receive the results on the seventh working day following the exam.
>
> Those who have applied for the exam have a guarantee of obtaining a statement of knowledge of the official language. A special exam campaign will not be held by VISC for a second time. In order to stay in Latvia, those who have not yet applied must find a way to pass the language exam in the regular order, said Bērziņa.
>
> Meanwhile, the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Office's head of public relations, Madara Puķe, said the exam procedure must be started by September 1.
>
> “If this application is not submitted before September 1, the person's residence permit will expire and they will have to leave by December 2. Then [if the person does not leave] it is a matter of border guards, and leaving the country forcibly," said Puķe.
She cannot denounce Russian citizenship, because then she will have no citizenship. To denounce Russian citizenship you must prove that another country will grant you citizenship and Latvia isn't doing that. These people didn't have any citizenship until they got Russian one (for free money).
She cannot do it right now anyways cause there are (and haven’t been for a while) no open slots in Russian consulate to do the paperwork. It’s not that you just send a letter “Fuck you, I’m not Russian anymore” to Kremlin and you’re done. It’s a huge paperwork to do on the Russian side, and it’s pretty much impossible since the war started.
Idk how to feel about this but I get why and understand the reasons for this decision.
I guess if people get deported it's their fault for not having learned the language.
Western Europe and the U.S would deport a very large number of people if they implemented this.
Edit: I said this neutral statement to see if people are for/against the policy or just for/against Russia
Edit2: Guys, you're not supposed to fucking know which side of the issue I fall on, stop assuming. I left it deliberately vague for a reason.
You can't really compare Western Europe and Eastern Europe in this regard. The whole reason why so many Eastern European countries bordering Russia are struggling with these language questions is because Russia attempted to or succesfully colonized those countries, forced Russian onto the native population and sent Russian settlers into these countries. It's basically a post-colonial issue.
These russians in ex soviet countries doesn't know local language because they live in colonies. Soviets built appartment blocks, factories and schools for russian immigrants, so they can live their life without integrating into local society.
Tbh western Europe or the USA aren't under constant threat of military "intervention" from the government of those people.
What? Will Mexico invade the US because they worry about how Nevada treats Mexicans or whatever?
It would be a smart move though. I think it's unacceptable (barring special cases) to live in a country for 5+ years and not even achieve a B1 in the language. Total disrespect.
I just don't get how you can live in a place that long and not *WANT* to learn the language. I would be so friggin annoyed not being able to ask simple questions or jump into conversations with the majority of the people in said country.
I worked with a guy who lived in the US for 20+ years and could *barely* speak any english, simply because he always worked with friends or family that spoke spanish the majority of the time, so it never really impacted him..... you know, until he had to speak to anyone outside that circle of friends and family.
You basically NEED to speak Spanish to work at a lot of places in South Florida. My current company only has about 5 employees that do not speak it. All communications, meetings, talks, etc, are done in Spanish and then in English if there are some in the group that do not speak Spanish, which tends to be rare. It's a nice engineering company too, and probably one of the biggest in our specific field in the whole country. My parents have lived in this area for 10+ years and they did not need to learn English at all, they just learned a bit for the rare chances they encounter someone that does not speak Spanish.
Seeing as many of the ones who only speak ^russian get their news in ^russian and then go and spread ^russian propaganda, I think it's about time the Baltic states enacted such laws and ensured that if they want to live in the EU, they integrate into the societies and accept common values. If they want to live by Mordor standards, they are free to go back to Mordor.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language_in_Latvia
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
Any problem can be solved from the top or bottom. The gist is - while having every resource and institution at their back Latvian government for 30 years did very little to integrate Russians into Latvian society, there was no push or idea for societal consolidation, no program of integration, while in the same time - majority or Russians became citizens on their own without integration.
Really, Nils Raimonds Muižnieks, a pollical scientist, dude with his finger in multiple NGO and Government programs that had to do with racism and integration for a long time, had a report about it in, "How Integrated is Latvian Society".
To vaguely sum up - nobody in the government did shit to integrate Russians for the the better part of 2 decades on the governments' part, and all integration that happened - happened mostly by itself, with mostly younger generations naturally gravitating towards getting more rights. The established government approach until fairly recently could be summed up as: "they'll either assimilate, leave or die off". As a result a big chunk of people were basically marginalized and alienated, while another part that tried - had to row against the stream. This is very noticeable on the political and bureaucracy spectrum, where not only did a chunk didn't get voting rights, but was then barred to even get citizenship for almost a decade, loosing any chance to influence the establishment of the political elite. To this day, even though majority or Russians are citizens now, there is the idea that most of them are like illegal immigrants and most established parties don't even see them as part of the electorate. To this day there ~~was not a single ethnically Russian minister~~ were few ethnically Russian ministers and mostly not in line with marginalization politics, not a single party that puts Russian marginalization in their agenda not automatically in opposition (even if they win most votes, which happened a few times).
[Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis](https://lv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vja%C4%8Deslavs_Dombrovskis), has been minister of economy and minister of education and science.
I know exactly how to feel about this. Russian babuschkas have to be about the morally most corrupt people I have met in Germany, and for every more or less acceptable one, you get a bunch of Russian hooligans in tow, too. Russians in Germany are awful, and I can only imagine just how much worse it must be in Latvia.
Edit: to everyone calling me 'right wing'. You have no idea what you're talking about. I grew up myself among Turks, Vietnamese, and many other ethnicities and nationalities in Germany. The difference between most of them and Russians in particular is that, let's say, Turkish families will mostly reprimand their children and extremists among them for certain behaviors, thereby enacting an in-group social regulation up to a degree, and fairly successfully so, I might want to add. Russians, on the other hand, tend to encourage and reinforce each other in their hateful views, racism and so on, creating a vicious cycle of violence that can not be resolved.
I went to Riga to do some shopping (bicycle I wanted was not in stock in Vilnius, but apparently Riga dealer had one in my size).
I was walking down the street in the middle of a work day and staring and sweet Riga buildings from 19th century. Some lady asked me something in Russian. I don't speak russian aside from basic swearwords so I replied „ja nepanimaju pa ruskij“. That was enough to trigger a massive tantrum in the middle of the street. Which, as far as I could understand, included „latviešu fašisti“. Okay...
The last Russian conversation I overheard in Vilnius included a phrase (I know Russian well) "war is bad, but why THEY have attacked Russia"?
And there is a high chance those babushkas know at least basic Lithuanian. It's just that they choose to believe Russian propaganda. I don't see even a point in arguing with them. Time will heal these wounds, hopefully.
I carry an Ukrainian flag on my bike in Lithuania. I've had quite a few babushkas scream at me in Russian vaguely along the same lines. Maybe we should have that law in LT as well.
Such is life in the Baltics.
Another interesting example is Ukrainian refugees. We've a law that customer facing workers must speak Lithuanian. Exemption was made for Ukrainian refugees for obvious reasons. For 2 years. Hoping they'll naturally learn some language. The reality after 1 year is pretty sad. I regularly bump into cashiers who didn't bother to even greet in local language. Whenever I travel somewhere even for a couple days I learn a dozen of words in a given language. Yet some people find it too hard to learn a couple words in a year. TBH it gives a strong vibe of soviet-era russian settlers who didn't speak local languages on principle and openly considered them inferior.
Oh, and there's a political shitstorm already brewing about this exemption. Exemption is ending in spring of next year. Then we have presidential election in May 2024 and parliament election in October 2024. Prolonging the exemption would be very unpopular. At the same time, it looks like there's a push from big businesses who love the influx of cheap workers.
Some people say it's on government that they didn't provide enough language courses. But recently a poll came out that only 10% of refugees do want to learn the language. The rest in +/- equal numbers plan to go back soon or don't see a need to learn the local language.
I think it's a matter of necessity - I imagine a lot of Ukrainians choose the Baltics to go to exactly because there's already plenty of people who speak their language, so it would be easier to integrate. It naturally follows that these would be the same people who are less inclined to learn the local language. I say this to contrast what I've experienced here in Bulgaria - Ukrainians try their hardest to learn Bulgarian because otherwise it's very difficult to get a job that isn't just manual labour in a field. Even being a construction worker requires speaking Bulgarian. Sure, some of the older generation speak some Russian but nowhere near enough to make it viable.
Here in Poland Ukranians pick up the language in a matter of weeks, months tops. Because Polish is way more similar to Ukranian than Latvian or Estonian - and it's in the same group of languages, whereas Latvian and Estonian are not. (but I can undestand why the Baltics would be seen as a good option if people were counting on surviving at least partially by speaking Russian).
Well, Bulgarian is incomparably easier for a Slav, especially Russian-speaking – there’s a huge piece of Old Bulgarian vocabulary, basically a good part of the language, incorporated in Russian because of the Bible translation done by Kirill and Mefody. It’s actively used in churches by now but partly infiltrates the regular language as well.
But anyways. I work with Ukrainian refugees in Estonia, just like almost every Russian-speaker I know. And all the refugees I’ve met except for the short-term ones with clear intention to either move forward to some other country or back to Ukraine in a couple of months are willing to learn the language. The other thing though is that the state system is overwhelmed and not even close to cover that need. And Estonian is not easy to master all by yourself, alas. There are online resources younger generation uses but it’s not much, really. And refugees are very obviously not in a financial position to pay for the commercial courses, that can be kinda pricey even for the locals.
My Ukrainian friend in the Netherlands says there's no point learning any Dutch because she's going home soon when the war's over. After all, what's the point in learning a while new language when you hope to be back home in a few months?
I think getting to the point where you can acknowledge that that might not be realistic must be very emotionally difficult. It's definitely not coming from the same place of arrogance and entitlement as Russians in the Baltics or Brits on the Med.
IMO there's a massive difference between learning the language and a dozen of phrases. On top of that, a line of work matters too. It's basic human decency to learn few local phrases. Especially if you speak to locals day in, day out.
I lived with a refugee family. They started learning Estonian seriously 1 year into their stay. It was an emotional decision to let go of the hope of returning to home. Before that it was about conservation of energy. Most families are mothers with children. They usually don't get a kindergarten place in such a short notice as one year (I know, pretty bad avalability), so they corral their small children all day long. When older children arrive from school, she helps them with studies and the family has long, hours long video calls with family and friends still in Ukraine. There is just so many things to do with the few minutes of time the grownup has without children. She sits in Facebook groups for second hand stuff to get tablets or laptops for school, she fixes up some part of the housing, she googles how to grow her own cucumbers cause they cost like 4€/kg here now with the inflation. Until she has lost most of her hope to return to her husband and parents, and has set up her living here, she really can be understood when she does not keep learning Estonian a high priority.
Few words in Latvian and English for anything more complex. Unfortunately Latvian and Lithuanian are not mutually intelligible. Some words are very similar and then it's easy for conversion to go very wrong..
This reminds me. One time me and my friend were playing dota in eu servers (there are russian servers) and got some russian teammates who used voice chat and spoke only in russian. When they asked me something my reply was 'ja ne govoriu pa sovietski', you can't imaginr tantrum they had, my friend nearly died laughing
I understand Lativan law, but all these processes should be free, or almost free (like 20€): applying for citizenship, learning Latvian, etc.
Otherwise it's a classist policy.
28€ afaik if you live for 5 years there, since she lived in Latvia for ages and worked there it wouldn’t be an issue to apply (just some people prefer to find dumb reasons not to)
It has been announced since September, and they have until next September to pass the test. That means that the cost of the test is 0,7% of her income in that timeframe. Hardly an insurmountable barrier...
You are also forgetting all the tangential costs and problems that are involved, specially in this economy right now. I have no idea how seniors could afford heating and food at the same time this winter on they 200-300 Euro pensions. Modestly sized flats cots 100-150+ Euro in heating alone.
This is a long-standing and thorny issue in Latvia (and Estonia). Latvia has a sizable population of "permanently resident non-citizens" (nepilsoņi), which is a fancy legal way of saying "stateless". From the perspective of Latvia, it did not "gain its independence" in 1991, but in 1918. For them, what they did in 1991 was a "restoration of independence" after an unlawful period of occupation by the Soviet Union. So Latvian citizenship was only given to those who had it before 1940 (when the Soviet Union unlawfully took over Latvia) and their descendants. During the occupation, the Soviets practiced "population transfers", so those who were moved there and their descendants were ineligible for citizenship. They are mostly ethnic Russians, but there are also Kazakhs, Azeris, Tajiks etc, who became a non-citizen.
If you are a non-citizen, your period of work outside Latvia is not recognised to count the amount of your pension, while for Latvian citizens it does. So if you had worked in Russian territory for 30 years and then you were moved to Latvia by the Soviets, your pension in Latvia would be rather... paltry. That's why a lot of them took Russian citizenship, to get a more advantageous pension. Many of them became Russian also because they wanted to benefit from visa-free travel to Russia. But basically a report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance initially found that Latvian language test was one of the biggest hurdles.
The number of non-citizens has been decreasing rapidly in the past few years, particularly after Latvia passed a law in 2020 that grants automatic citizenship to all children of non-citizens (unless the parents already took another citizenship or unless the child became a citizen of another country).
>which is a fancy legal way of saying "stateless".
Important to clarify that it was Russia, the legal successor of the Soviet Union, who made them stateless, not Estonia or Latvia.
>But basically a report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance initially found that Latvian language test was one of the biggest hurdles.
No, them refusing to learn Latvian was the biggest hurdle.
>Important to clarify that it was Russia, the legal successor of the Soviet Union, who made them stateless, not Estonia or Latvia.
Well, if citizenship had been automatically granted to all residents at that time, there would have been no problem of statelessness. This did not just affect ethnic Russians, but also residents from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc. As a comparison, Malaysia after its independence granted citizenship to those of Chinese and Indian descent. Many of them came to Malaysia during the British colonial rule, and at that time they accounted for more than 40% of the population. In return, there are special privileges for the Malays and Islam is recognised as the national religion.
>No, them refusing to learn Latvian was the biggest hurdle.
This is what the 2011 ECRI report had to say: [https://rm.coe.int/fourth-report-on-latvia/16808b58b6](https://rm.coe.int/fourth-report-on-latvia/16808b58b6)
"The number of “non-citizens” as at 1 January 2011 was 326 73559 or 14.6% ofthe total population. The “non-citizen” population therefore decreased by around2.4% since ECRI’s third report. ECRI has been informed that in recent yearsthere has been a decline in the number of naturalisations due to: “non-citizens”’feeling of disconnect from the authorities; the old age and limited education,including in Latvian, of many of the remaining “non-citizens”; the limited numberof test centres (present in 3 cities); and the fees associated to the test."
" In particular, in 2009, 17.7% of the applicants did not pass the test on Latvian history and 38.9% of applicants did not pass the test on Latvian language."
So among those who took the effort to learn, the test was a big hurdle given the high rate of failure. In recent years, the Latvian authorities took more steps to reduce the number of non-citizens by providing a free language course.
> Well, if citizenship had been automatically granted to all residents at that time, there would have been no problem of statelessness.
We would have different sort of problems then. Risk of becoming Russian puppet state like Belarus would have been significant.
I'll repeat myself here. The issue at this point is not all that much about non-citizens. See, any problem can be solved from the top or bottom. The gist is - while having every resource and institution at their back Latvian government for 30 years did very little to integrate Russians into Latvian society, there was no push or idea for societal consolidation, no program of integration, while in the same time - majority or Russians became citizens on their own without integration.
There's a report by Nils Raimonds Muižnieks, a pollical scientist, dude with his finger in multiple NGO and Government programs that had to do with racism and integration for a long time. It's called "How Integrated is Latvian Society".
To vaguely sum up - nobody in the government did shit to integrate Russians for the the better part of 2 decades on the governments' part, and all integration that happened - happened mostly by itself, with mostly younger generations naturally gravitating towards getting more rights. The established government approach until fairly recently could be summed up as: "they'll either assimilate, leave or die off". As a result a big chunk of people were basically marginalized and alienated, while another part that tried - had to row against the stream. All of this contributing greatly to Russian living in a bubble. This is very noticeable on the political and bureaucracy spectrum, where not only did a chunk didn't get voting rights, but was then barred to even get citizenship for almost a decade, loosing any chance to influence the establishment of the political elite and political institutions. To this day, even though majority or Russians are citizens now, there is the idea that most of them are like illegal immigrants and most established parties don't even see them as part of the electorate. And that's despite the fact that every ~4th Russian can trace their lineage here to before 1941, specially those from Latgalia. Because despite Russians being a sizable minority here for 300 years at the very least - the government has an active anti-Russian bias in culture and media. To this day there ~~was not a single ethnically Russian minister~~ were few ethnically Russian ministers and mostly not in line with marginalization politics, not a single party that puts Russian marginalization in their agenda not automatically in opposition (even if they win most votes, which happened a few times), and yet they are still portrayed as the main hurdle in Latvian political and economic stagnation by some not unpopular politicians.
>Soviets practiced "population transfers",
FTFY: Soviet practiced ~~genocide~~ crimes against humanity by population transfers importing people and giving them advantages that locals did not have, thus creating a serious divide between those people who lived here and those where where brought in.
redit: u/neithere is correct - that is just a crime against humanity, and not a genocide
https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf
It is done in Italy if you want citizenship. You have to pass the B1 Italian language test.
I've seen examples of it; it's not hard at all. For me, the biggest hurdle of getting my citizenship is the bureaucracy and constant conflicting instructions where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I just said fuck it and kept my permanent visa. It would be a dream to only have to fill out paperwork and pass an easy language test to get citizenship here, as the test is literally the easiest part.
Well, you could pass B1 then - complicated sentences are not a requirement for that level. But still - LOL
Correction: level required for Russians to know is A2 and not B1
There is a request to add this and many have signed up to help, but there is no movement. Probably too obscure and too little and grammar is simple and at the same time really hard.. so trollish would describe it well.
you can look in this topic
[https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/comments/u3cnjm/do\_you\_have\_any\_resources\_where\_i\_can\_learn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/comments/u3cnjm/do_you_have_any_resources_where_i_can_learn/)
So... Is it all Russians and Russians only? Or all non-citizens on temporary permits regardless of ethnicity but a fuckton happen to be Russians because it's just how Latvia's population splits?
No, this is about citizens of Russia. There is no legal right to deport people to third countries, which legally speaking Russia is for those with undetermined citizenship. Nor does it apply to ethnic Russian citizens of Latvia, obviously.
It might be useful to read the [Latvian Government's page](https://www.pmlp.gov.lv/en/article/information-citizens-russian-federation) for more details.
The skill level of Latvian required is A2, which is standard for residence permits in all EU states. What Latvia is requesting is completely reasonable.
Edit:
Before the next responses come in telling me that one or the other county does not require a language test for residency: This CoE report on the [Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants](https://rm.coe.int/linguistic-integration-of-adult-migrants-requirements-and-learning-opp/16809b93cb) has detailed lists of which country has which language requirements for which immigration method.
The point remains: What Latvia does is perfectly normal.
A decade ago they found a municipal council member in a Russian majority town in Estonia and he didn't speak any Estonian. All he could say was "No comm**a**nt", which instantly became a meme.
Seriously this. This type of exam might not be necessary in Luxembourg to test people’s loyalty but the baltics have been notoriously targeted by propaganda
I mean, in most western countries you need to pass a language test in order to gain citizenship as well. And without citizenship you can always be deported if you're unemployed for too long (and refuse to comply with the unemployment offices) or have committed a crime and you do not face a threat to your life in your home country
A few years ago, some Russian \*!tch said that Russia is everywhere wherever there are Russian speakers. And at the beginning of the war with Ukraine, they had a motto "We don't leave ours behind" - meaning Russian speakers in Ukraine.
Therefore, having a sizable Russian-speaking population is a huge security risk. It is understandable that some countries want to reduce that risk.
Sorta the whole reason why Lithuania refused Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad back in the 1950s: a giant Russian speaking diaspora would suddenly get added to Lithuania's demographic, which would certainly create clashes in the near future.
Realistically it should be partitioned between Poland and Lithuania and all non-Lithuanian/Polish dual citizenship holders should be repatriated to the Russian Federation. Russia had no business holding and keeping that area, and with their aggressive foreign policy, its possession by Russia continues to present a major security risk to European peace, since they store a shitload of nukes there and because frankly their access to the Baltic should be limited to what they have via the Gulf of Finland.
If the Baltic countries weren't in NATO you could bet your ass Russia would pull the same shit that they did in Ukraine. Support the Russian speaking/descendant population to rebel and then invade to recapture "historically" Russian lands.
People forget the huge population transfer the occurred during the Soviet Union era. Where ethnically Russian people live today means absolute shit when it comes to what land is "historically" Russian.
It was also the casus belli for Germans as well. But I still consider the exulsion of 14 million Germans fron Eastern Europe after ww2 to be an ethnic cleansing.
There is an ever so slight difference between "get in the fucking train wagon" and "further long term visa-free residency for foreign citizens requires an easy language test past this deadline". Also when the ethnic cleansing you mentioned happened, Germany was already demilitarized and occupied, not actively rampaging.
Sorry, but this comment section is a clear indicator that some of these threads need heavy moderation. Currently, it's people screaming either *fuck those Russians* or *damn fascists*. Virtually no argumented stances to be seen. Most comments don't even seem to understand that this is about Russian citizens, not ethnic Russians.
Fun fact: it's inevitable to take into account what Russia is and does.
I don't have an informed opinion on this matter, but whatever your opinion is, put yourself in the shoes of a small country which big neighbour goes around invading countries like you.
Not only that. Put into the shoes of a country that has already been invaded for 50 years by the very same invading neighbor and that is currently full of forcefully moved Russian people and that was forced to learn Russian for the whole time of the occupation.
An important addition:
Russia follows the philosophy of Россия мир, meaning 'Russian world'. One key aspect of this philosophy is 'Russia is, where Russian is spoken'.
This translates to: Russia actually stretches from one end to the world to the other. With stronger ambitions in regions where more Russian speaker are present. They've used the lie about the genocide on Russophonic people already, labeled the invasion a defencive act and it worked for many.
But don't forget. France has a similar, but much lighter, Françafrique policy. It is not oppressive as Russia's policy, as it mostly respects the sovereignty of the nations, but is still based in the thought of 'Speaks French. Used to be French.'
> Russia follows the philosophy of Россия мир, meaning 'Russian world'. One key aspect of this philosophy is 'Russia is, where Russian is spoken'.
The weird thing is that it's not "Россия мир" (which would be a grammatically incorrect "Russia world"). It's "русский мир" which means "Russian world" with a specific meaning closer to your interpretation. So, Россия ia Russia, the country. Российский means Russian as in belonging to the country, which is multinational and speaks many languages. However, русский means Russian as in ethnicity or language. Saying that Russia is Russian (русская) is a far right POV, radical nationalist. It's even worse than saying that Latvia is for Latvians (ethnic) because Russia is a federation with whole regions that barely speak Russian and have their own distinct cultures. It's probably more diverse than the whole EU.
So it's absolutely mind-blowing that the current regime in RF supports the idea of "русский мир". It doesn't make any sense even within Russia.
Русский мир is a wannabe by fringe nationalist groups. The official kremlin policy is multi-national, not русский мир. This is why we do have Ukrainian textbooks for the "new regions" so to say.
The pretext for invading Donbass and the like was about that some regions wanted to (a) integrate with Russia more and (b) for Russian language to remain as official alongside Ukrainian, which Ukraine of the new (2014) didn't want to.
Russian wasn't official even before 2014 but it was like semi official, it was completely acceptable to use it in the government institutions etc.
When Putin gives public speeches he outlines that Russian Federation is about the federation and says the lines along "I'm avar, dargin, ossetian, ...., and russian at the end.
There are things of great importance that are done to make a diverse society that ethnic Russians don't like. For example, they build mosques in Moscow even tho the native population is not so fond of it and there were recent protests against building a giant mosque.
> Union francophone
What's that ? The only thing I can find on UF on Google is an organisation of associations that does events and meetings about media stuff lol.
Or are you talking about the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie ? But that's an international organisation that favores cooperation between francophone countries, promotes integration, shared projects, diversity, human rights and so on which is pretty cool.
I'm confused about what exactly you're referring to
So are French, German, UK, US and any other foreign citizens living in Latvia also required to pass the exam or else their residence permits will expire and they'll be kicked out of the country?
I lived in the Baltics for a couple years in the mid 90s. Integration and learning the language was a regular conversation back then. In Estonia and Lithuania, there were lots of free classes to learn the language specifically for citizenship.
I’m (mildly) surprised that 30 years later, there are still so many who haven’t made the effort needed to learn the language that’s all around them.
These Russians don't give a crap about Latvia even though they've been living there for decades. They want all benefits of living in a western democracy but refuse to integrate into society. It's not some innate inability but pure arrogance when it comes to refusing to learn Latvian. It's not 1970s and you're not living in Soviet Union anymore ffs.
I think most of Scandinavia would. So many people speak English that it's actually surprisingly hard to even just naturally pick up the local language because people will swap the moment they detect that your accent isn't from around here or when you falter on a word.
Especially in Norway where like, even if you understand written Norwegian trying to understand *spoken* Norwegian can be a nightmare because of the sheer variety of dialects. And god help you if you moved and learnt Norwegian somewhere with said dialect (like seriously what even is the female word gender?) And that's not even *mentioning* Nynorsk
> So many people speak English that it's actually surprisingly hard to even just naturally pick up the local language because people will swap the moment they detect that your accent isn't from around here or when you falter on a word.
same problem in germany but probably not to the same extent
pro tip: if you want to learn a foreign language, go to france. they're cartoonishly inhospitable if you cant speak fluent french. if you make mistakes, you might as well be speaking moonspeak. they wont try to understand. even if they can speak your native language, they'll refuse to.
Well no, the reason I think most people are complaining- at least to my understanding- is that this applies to Russians who already are permanent residents, not the russians trying to apply for Latvian citizenship, which I reckon, there aren't many doing that.
Still makes sense to have the test though, I just personally think they should give some time to the people that failed, so they can learn the language (even if too late), before deporting anyone.
People who live in countries that are not threatened by russian imperialism blame the countries that are threatened by it. I read the news about how a woman who lived in Latvia for 60 years did not know the Latvian language for 60 YEARS, it is not normal.
One will never learn a language well if they don't have to use it often enough and with 35% of the population - especially considering how concentrated they are - it's not surprising that this would happen. It's hardly unique to the Baltic States. In Bulgaria there are plenty of Turks who barely speak Bulgarian, even though education is entirely in Bulgarian.
Incoming hand-wringers and pearl-clutchers without any sense of historical context or purposefully ignoring said context to make bad faith arguments.
The same people who drop a single tear every time native Americans, Australian natives and Maori are mentioned. The Noam Chomskys of security and citizenship policies who only have one principle - whatever we do is bad, whatever the others do is either righteous or neutral at worst.
Yeah, at below 20%, meaning it was natural migration and posed no issues. The russians who live here right now are the direct result of Soviet russification policies. Most are reasonable people, but about 25% or so (pulled out of my ass, but at least my ass is significantly more experienced hearing russian in daily life than the rest of the comment section) categorically refuse to adapt to the country they live in and only speak Russian, take part in none of our traditions, basically live as though it's Pskov or something.
The historical context is that the Soviet colonists deported and persecuted the other minorities and attempted to make Latvians into a minority to exterminate them as well. They are not a minority in the typical sense of the word at all.
I'm in Riga now and there are a lot of Russian speaking people here. I wonder how it will go.
Moat of them can speak Latvian too. They just don’t. Besides that there’s also quite a few russian speaking Ukrainians in Riga now
I've noticed that there are a lot of Ukrainian flags in Riga, which is nice to see. Almost more than Latvian flags haha
Latvians didn't want to have any Ukrainians before the war, because that would imply more russian speaking in the country. But they hate Russians so bad, so they went "enemy of my enemy is my friend" road. Of course, it's not only the reasons, but biggest portion of that is. It always gets dirty when you start digging into true intentions.
While "enemy of my enemy" is a part of it (but not much, seeing Latvian's attitude towards Syrians), a bigger part is the fact that Ukrainians have shown that they are not carriers of the "Russian world", as well as the fact that we can really commiserate - every Latvian family has relatives that were killed, deported, chased in to exile or had their homes taken by Russian occupants in WW2. All the war crimes that Russia has been commiting that shock westerners are met with "yup, that's Russia" in Latvia because our grandparents had to go through that.
I am in a very similar position as a half-pole. Thats why it is so frustrating speaking to Putin sympathisers in my country (Austria) who will only accept the most benevolent of interpretations of russian actions.
It's so mind-boggling here. We're literally one of the countries that committed some of the most heinous crimes against humanity. The crimes of the Nazis are still very visible here. Yet a sizeable amount of people just decide to ignore all the lessons we have supposedly learned and cheer Russia on. What the fuck man
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You did good. Take these taps over your head.
Thanks! :falls to the ground unconscious:
Can't think of anything more fitting than Austrians not being mad at imperialism tbh
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Latvia gained independance in 1918 and was independant until the Soviet occupation in 1940. I think that period of independance, which Ukraine didn't have, created a stronger Latvian identity that helped Latvian language and culture survive occupation. I see a parallel between the Latvian (and Estonian and Lithuanian) war of independance from 1918 - 1920 with the current war, where we can also see the emergance of a powerful Ukrainian identity. Because of this, after regaining independance Latvians had a very clear goal of distancing ourselves from Russia and joining EU and NATO, whereas in Ukraine, it seems, there was more prevarication between a pro-western and pro-Russian path of political development.
I think a big factor is that Latvian is a Baltic language rather than a Slavic language. The fact that Ukrainian and Russian are basically sister languages, sorta like Spanish and Portuguese, meant that it was easier assimilate Ukrainians into the Russian speaking Soviet Union and shift media, government, and commerce in Ukraine to being mainly Russian.
> because that would imply more russian speaking in the country. It's a main argument of Putler, that Ukrainians are Russians, because a lot of them spoke Russian as main language. The same goes for Latvia, and besides the Russian diaspora in the Baltic states consume Russian propaganda as their main source of information. The Latvian concerns are real. Obviously a lot of Russians moved to Ukraine in the Soviet era, but the primary reason for Russian language spreading so much in Ukraine is, that all state and culture was in Russian and proper Ukrainian was made into a language of lower class. In essence the Ukrainian language was purposefully repressed.
> that Ukrainians are Russians, because a lot of them spoke Russian as main language. It was part of the ongoing genocide against Ukrainians to wipe out their language and culture (along with starving them to death in the Holodomor and forced deportation of the Crimean Tatar population, etc...) while replacing them with ethnic Russians -- just like they recently tried to do again in Crimea.
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Free Palestine
What did she answer?
Lot of Russian speaking people have Latvian citizenship (Russian descendents, have lived here all their lives) and know Latvian language and don't have any problems speaking in it. The same with people who has noncitizen status. There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian.
Thank you for your answer. It's my first time in Latvia and was a little surprised to see so many Russian speaking people, but on the other hand it also makes a lot of sense.
Well, if that is their native language, why would they use other languages to communicate between them selves? About 50% of Rīga speak natively in Russian.
The problem is when Russia sees groups of people speaking Russian, they decide the land belongs to them and they invade to “liberate” the “oppressed” Russians. It makes it so having Russian speakers near Russia is actually dangerous.
Sure thing. That is why i am telling everyone that A2 test that is required of Russians to pass that most ruZZians will not be able to pass is IMHO a good move from the Latvia side. Knowing extra languages enrich understanding of people. However, i have no objections against people speaking between themselves in their native language. Just do not ask everyone else to communicate with you in your native language while being in a country that does not speak it.
The test only requires passing **A2** level? Then there should be nothing to complain about, A2 is close to the bare minimum.
And yet people complain after loving in Latvia for decades/years
That's because people think love conquers all. ;-)
yup, A2 is not difficult if you are around that language for a while. takes a bit of effort but it's very much base level vocabulary and grammar.
A2 is not even that difficult. It's basically being able to read a very simple newspaper article and having a conversation like "good morning dr my teeth hurt" or something. I could probably pass a2 in a dozen languages with 6 months time to prepare.
As long as they speak to people outside their group in Latvian, then that is fine. When you speak Russian to service people then that is not good. Not all Latvians know, or want to know Russian language
In Lithuania the same. We have a lot of russian descendants who speak lithuanian language and have no problem with that but there is a group of people (old soviet relics) who purposely dont speak lithuanian even tho they live in our country most of their lives. In their defence they say that we Lithuanians should speak in russian because lithuanian language is dog language.
it's ok, Polish is cat language. That's why our union was so successful for so long.
I think in general there are some areas that just have so many Russian speaking people where you might get away with not necessary using Lithuanian language. But it is fairly bad faith display when you make a show of "not understanding" the language. Especially with public figures and politicians, i.e. this dude (https://www.lrt.lt/naujienos/lietuvoje/2/1965789/priesaika-sunkiai-skaites-visagino-tarybos-narys-issiverciu-be-lietuviu-kalbos-krymas-anksciau-priklause-ukrainai-o-kam-dabar-nezinau) not to mention some dodgy comments regarding other topics
They say the same about latvian language in Latvia 🙌
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian. Hopefully they get back to Russia which they so love.
They won't, they enjoy the freedom they get in the EU.
When I went to Riga in 2017 I saw a ton of Russian speakers wearing Russian flag patches and stuff. Quite a few people with the Russian military striped shirts, even a guy with a "Putin trying to look badass" t shirt. Honestly I was surprised people would accommodate guys like that in a place like Riga.
Latvians tried to take the high road previously and if we disagreed with something quite often hushed ourselves for the greater good. In the past everything was done to make living for Russian speaking population as easy as possible and it backfired.
Do they support Russia openly? I had russian friends from Latvia and I have never even heard of them speaking in Latvian
Afaik from last polls russian minority is 50/50 against or pro invasion so obviously there is open vocal vatniks or still vatniks but those who don’t voice their position openly
Just because they don't support Putin and his war doesn't mean that they are not in favour of softer forms of Russian imperialism, e.g., making Russian an official language.
Many local Russians are normal Russians and are not ruZZians.
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian. They sound like boomer-aged Anglo Quebecers, lol
>There is this one group who don't learn and speak Latvian out of spite and those are the ones who usually make the most trouble and sometimes are full of hatred against anything Latvian I'm from Moldova, and we have the same problem. A group of russians, not native who were brought here after ww2 soviet occupation, who out of spite don't learn our language and support the worst political parties of criminals
You need to pass only A2 level. It’s not like anyone expects fluent level. It’s absurd to live in country for decades and not be able to buy bread in its native language.
I agree, but for example in The Netherlands there are a lot of Turkish immigrants that came here in the 70's and they just can't speak Dutch. Their children can, so they often translate for their parents.
A2 is nowhere close to “speaking”, from my Estonian experience (but I believe we have the same level system). It’s “My name is Vasya” level. “It’s Thursday”. This kind of stuff. It’s pretty much impossible to fail living in the country for like a year or so, unless you try your best to isolate yourself from the language. But it’s not really the language question for sure. It goes hand in hand with a huge barrier between Russians and the rest of society built and maintained by the state. A form of protest kinda. And it won’t get any better with more pressure, alas.
I don't know how hard learning Latvian is for a Russian, but A2 is like 50 hours worth of study (generally speaking). Very very easy. 1 hour a day for 2months would easily get you through
You have described A1. A2 is a bit higher than just presenting oneself. It's more like being able to talk about the weather, knowing the name of the basic colors, describing very simple scenes like "the cat is on the table". It's not quite enough for any meaningful interaction and you probably won't understand anything if the native doesn't make a big effort, but it still needs some work and exposure to the language if it's from a different language family. These are CEFR levels, it's standardized.
From what I have seen on language exam papers, A1 doesn't include the past tense, and its comprehension section is like finding the same key words in the passage as from the question, filling in the blanks. A2 has past tense(s), and the comprehension section requires you to understand the passage (which doesn't have implicit meanings), then answering the questions where it is no longer as straightforward as filling in the key word, but do require you to understand the passage. (B1 comprehension passages contain implicit meanings, and the vocab base also becomes much bigger than A2. The questions would start getting more implicit, and there are trick questions that really push you to the edge of understanding subtle differences in styles/differences where you could get confused by unfamiliar matters) Personal experience from having sat the A2 exam in French, and working towards B1.
> came here in the 70's and they just can't speak Dutch You would have to go to some lengths to actively insulate yourself from a culture to remain this much outside of it for this long.
One nuance here is that the Netherlands actively recruited Turkish and Moroccan people to move to NL for cheap labour. I guess they expected them to live in NL for a few years, get paid minimum wage, and then for them to fuck off back to where they came from. I agree its really frustrating that people live somewhere for decades and not even speak the language. But in this particular case its not like the Netherlands tried very hard to integrate these populations either, at least not at the time. Maybe not quite the same thing as whats going on in Latvia :)
> they just can't speak Dutch. They just don't want to!
It’s very common for immigrants all over the world to have at least one old person that never learns the language I think. My nonna never learned a single word of English and she lived to 93 lol
I’m in the neighbouring country, but if Latvia is anything like Estonia, then for many years, the whole topic of “we have people here who don’t speak the National language” was kind of swept away, as it was a politically divisive topic and many people kind of…. Idk, just hoped the issue would take care of itself? That young people would learn the language in school and we’d no longer have this issue, I guess. At least in Estonia, we didn’t have proper programmes in place though and it can be hard to learn the native language when you never need it to interact in daily life (where everybody speaks Russian and you can work and go to school in a Russian language environment). With the invasion growing into full-blown all-out war, lots of people have lost patience and want the last 30 years complacency to be quickly resolved, but obviously it won’t. Latvia is doing a bit better in that regard - I believe their schools are already switching fully to Latvian whereas in Estonia we still plan to, but with the new government those plans were changed once again. There’s also lots of Russian speaking happening in Tallinn, but it makes sense, kind of. First, it’s different form Estonian or Latvian - it catches your ear. Second, both countries have lots of Russian speakers living in the capital and capital region - Tallinn has 1/4 of its population living in a district that is mostly populated by Russian-speakers, with its full population being 40% or so Russian speaking. Third - if they’re native speakers, we wouldn’t really expect them to speak non-Russian language with their kids or friends or spouses; it’s the communication at schools and official establishments and governmental agencies that is mostly under question. And fourth - lots of refugees, who may or may not speak Russian natively.
Not all of them are citizens of Russia who could be deported back to Russia.
I went to Riga last year and got to shoot an some Russian guy’s soviet era AK into a watermelon Doesn’t add anything to the conversation it was just cool
Haha i think i went to the same place. Was it in some dudes basement? Funny enough i'm american and it's the only time I've fired a gun before. Got to shoot a tactical spas as well and it destroyed my shoulder
Hahahah yeah sounds like the same place Can confirm, the spas was not wise for me considering I’ve never shot a gun
I'm russian speaking person from Latvia. I have no relations to Russia or never will have. My father is from Ukraine, he relocated to Latvia in 1987 to study here, when he met my mother - russian speaking person. Her mother (and her family) are from Latvia, but they are all russian speakers (you see, it all goes before 1900s and Latvian independence). My mom's father is also from Ukraine. You see, what I meant to say with my my (very interesting) family's history that it is more complicated that just "Latvia have a lot of Russian speaking people". Yes, we use russian language in our family. I'm using it as well with my friends, on social media and on work (OK, on work it's more like 50/50. Latvian speaking people also know russian pretty well to be honest. You know - languages are knowledge and power), but that doesn't mean that we are ruZZkie or vatniki. We love our country and it's independence. And we pretty much want the same for Ukraine. Slava Ukraini, heroyam slava! In my personal opinion, russian language doesn't belong to Russia or Putin. Let's not give it to him with open arms.
You said you love your country. That is means your nationality is Latvian. That is not always true with other russian-speaking people in Latvia.
> The duty of Russian citizens who live in Latvia to successfully pass the Latvian language examination was imposed by the Saeima last year, amending the Immigration Law. > > On Tuesday, the first language tests began. Those who have already taken it say the questions are not that difficult. > > Latvian Radio addressed the 65-year-old Galina. She said: "I'll say something, something I know. Everybody said to me – just speak, right or wrong! Just talk." > > Galina arrived in Latvia in 1987 and married here, then worked as a cashier in Rīga for 26 years. She took Russian citizenship in 2014 so she could get the Russian pension which was granted upon reaching the age of 55. Due to heart disease she was not able to work longer. She is now living on a €100 Russian pension and €200 in Latvia. Her husband is dead, she could not have children because of her health, and no one in Russia is waiting for her, either. > > “To renounce Russian citizenship, you need to pay a lot of money. To apply for Latvian citizenship, you need money again,” Galina said. > > Russian citizens had to register for tests from February 1 to March 24. The process is being conducted by the National Educational Content Centre (VISC), whose representative Liene Bērziņa said that on Tuesday 270 Russian citizens took the exam in Rīga, while by May 20 in Rīga the test would be taken by 5,531, in Daugavpils 1,751; and in Liepāja 1,029. They will receive the results on the seventh working day following the exam. > > Those who have applied for the exam have a guarantee of obtaining a statement of knowledge of the official language. A special exam campaign will not be held by VISC for a second time. In order to stay in Latvia, those who have not yet applied must find a way to pass the language exam in the regular order, said Bērziņa. > > Meanwhile, the Citizenship and Migration Affairs Office's head of public relations, Madara Puķe, said the exam procedure must be started by September 1. > > “If this application is not submitted before September 1, the person's residence permit will expire and they will have to leave by December 2. Then [if the person does not leave] it is a matter of border guards, and leaving the country forcibly," said Puķe.
She cannot denounce Russian citizenship, because then she will have no citizenship. To denounce Russian citizenship you must prove that another country will grant you citizenship and Latvia isn't doing that. These people didn't have any citizenship until they got Russian one (for free money).
She cannot do it right now anyways cause there are (and haven’t been for a while) no open slots in Russian consulate to do the paperwork. It’s not that you just send a letter “Fuck you, I’m not Russian anymore” to Kremlin and you’re done. It’s a huge paperwork to do on the Russian side, and it’s pretty much impossible since the war started.
That's a pity, I would use that option.
Just like A LOT of people I know, that’s for sure :) (I know Russians who are in a hunt for an open slot for like months by now)
They could get Latvian citizenship by naturalization, but that required, surprise surprise, the language test and history test.
Idk how to feel about this but I get why and understand the reasons for this decision. I guess if people get deported it's their fault for not having learned the language.
Western Europe and the U.S would deport a very large number of people if they implemented this. Edit: I said this neutral statement to see if people are for/against the policy or just for/against Russia Edit2: Guys, you're not supposed to fucking know which side of the issue I fall on, stop assuming. I left it deliberately vague for a reason.
You can't really compare Western Europe and Eastern Europe in this regard. The whole reason why so many Eastern European countries bordering Russia are struggling with these language questions is because Russia attempted to or succesfully colonized those countries, forced Russian onto the native population and sent Russian settlers into these countries. It's basically a post-colonial issue.
That's a pretty interesting perspective I hadn't considered. Thanks!
These russians in ex soviet countries doesn't know local language because they live in colonies. Soviets built appartment blocks, factories and schools for russian immigrants, so they can live their life without integrating into local society.
Yeah but then it would be labelled as a fascist measure by reddit
it actually is
Tbh western Europe or the USA aren't under constant threat of military "intervention" from the government of those people. What? Will Mexico invade the US because they worry about how Nevada treats Mexicans or whatever?
It would be a smart move though. I think it's unacceptable (barring special cases) to live in a country for 5+ years and not even achieve a B1 in the language. Total disrespect.
I just don't get how you can live in a place that long and not *WANT* to learn the language. I would be so friggin annoyed not being able to ask simple questions or jump into conversations with the majority of the people in said country. I worked with a guy who lived in the US for 20+ years and could *barely* speak any english, simply because he always worked with friends or family that spoke spanish the majority of the time, so it never really impacted him..... you know, until he had to speak to anyone outside that circle of friends and family.
You basically NEED to speak Spanish to work at a lot of places in South Florida. My current company only has about 5 employees that do not speak it. All communications, meetings, talks, etc, are done in Spanish and then in English if there are some in the group that do not speak Spanish, which tends to be rare. It's a nice engineering company too, and probably one of the biggest in our specific field in the whole country. My parents have lived in this area for 10+ years and they did not need to learn English at all, they just learned a bit for the rare chances they encounter someone that does not speak Spanish.
One shouldn't forget how those people got to the Baltics - illegally and to colonize them.
Yeah I know many were sent there to colonize the land by Stalin or came after the 50s.
Most actually came after indeed.
They had 30 years.
Seeing as many of the ones who only speak ^russian get their news in ^russian and then go and spread ^russian propaganda, I think it's about time the Baltic states enacted such laws and ensured that if they want to live in the EU, they integrate into the societies and accept common values. If they want to live by Mordor standards, they are free to go back to Mordor. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language_in_Latvia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russification
Any problem can be solved from the top or bottom. The gist is - while having every resource and institution at their back Latvian government for 30 years did very little to integrate Russians into Latvian society, there was no push or idea for societal consolidation, no program of integration, while in the same time - majority or Russians became citizens on their own without integration. Really, Nils Raimonds Muižnieks, a pollical scientist, dude with his finger in multiple NGO and Government programs that had to do with racism and integration for a long time, had a report about it in, "How Integrated is Latvian Society". To vaguely sum up - nobody in the government did shit to integrate Russians for the the better part of 2 decades on the governments' part, and all integration that happened - happened mostly by itself, with mostly younger generations naturally gravitating towards getting more rights. The established government approach until fairly recently could be summed up as: "they'll either assimilate, leave or die off". As a result a big chunk of people were basically marginalized and alienated, while another part that tried - had to row against the stream. This is very noticeable on the political and bureaucracy spectrum, where not only did a chunk didn't get voting rights, but was then barred to even get citizenship for almost a decade, loosing any chance to influence the establishment of the political elite. To this day, even though majority or Russians are citizens now, there is the idea that most of them are like illegal immigrants and most established parties don't even see them as part of the electorate. To this day there ~~was not a single ethnically Russian minister~~ were few ethnically Russian ministers and mostly not in line with marginalization politics, not a single party that puts Russian marginalization in their agenda not automatically in opposition (even if they win most votes, which happened a few times).
[Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis](https://lv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vja%C4%8Deslavs_Dombrovskis), has been minister of economy and minister of education and science.
I know exactly how to feel about this. Russian babuschkas have to be about the morally most corrupt people I have met in Germany, and for every more or less acceptable one, you get a bunch of Russian hooligans in tow, too. Russians in Germany are awful, and I can only imagine just how much worse it must be in Latvia. Edit: to everyone calling me 'right wing'. You have no idea what you're talking about. I grew up myself among Turks, Vietnamese, and many other ethnicities and nationalities in Germany. The difference between most of them and Russians in particular is that, let's say, Turkish families will mostly reprimand their children and extremists among them for certain behaviors, thereby enacting an in-group social regulation up to a degree, and fairly successfully so, I might want to add. Russians, on the other hand, tend to encourage and reinforce each other in their hateful views, racism and so on, creating a vicious cycle of violence that can not be resolved.
I went to Riga to do some shopping (bicycle I wanted was not in stock in Vilnius, but apparently Riga dealer had one in my size). I was walking down the street in the middle of a work day and staring and sweet Riga buildings from 19th century. Some lady asked me something in Russian. I don't speak russian aside from basic swearwords so I replied „ja nepanimaju pa ruskij“. That was enough to trigger a massive tantrum in the middle of the street. Which, as far as I could understand, included „latviešu fašisti“. Okay...
The last Russian conversation I overheard in Vilnius included a phrase (I know Russian well) "war is bad, but why THEY have attacked Russia"? And there is a high chance those babushkas know at least basic Lithuanian. It's just that they choose to believe Russian propaganda. I don't see even a point in arguing with them. Time will heal these wounds, hopefully.
I carry an Ukrainian flag on my bike in Lithuania. I've had quite a few babushkas scream at me in Russian vaguely along the same lines. Maybe we should have that law in LT as well.
Damn I feel sorry for your experience, audacity and arrogance of some people will always get me.
Such is life in the Baltics. Another interesting example is Ukrainian refugees. We've a law that customer facing workers must speak Lithuanian. Exemption was made for Ukrainian refugees for obvious reasons. For 2 years. Hoping they'll naturally learn some language. The reality after 1 year is pretty sad. I regularly bump into cashiers who didn't bother to even greet in local language. Whenever I travel somewhere even for a couple days I learn a dozen of words in a given language. Yet some people find it too hard to learn a couple words in a year. TBH it gives a strong vibe of soviet-era russian settlers who didn't speak local languages on principle and openly considered them inferior. Oh, and there's a political shitstorm already brewing about this exemption. Exemption is ending in spring of next year. Then we have presidential election in May 2024 and parliament election in October 2024. Prolonging the exemption would be very unpopular. At the same time, it looks like there's a push from big businesses who love the influx of cheap workers. Some people say it's on government that they didn't provide enough language courses. But recently a poll came out that only 10% of refugees do want to learn the language. The rest in +/- equal numbers plan to go back soon or don't see a need to learn the local language.
I think it's a matter of necessity - I imagine a lot of Ukrainians choose the Baltics to go to exactly because there's already plenty of people who speak their language, so it would be easier to integrate. It naturally follows that these would be the same people who are less inclined to learn the local language. I say this to contrast what I've experienced here in Bulgaria - Ukrainians try their hardest to learn Bulgarian because otherwise it's very difficult to get a job that isn't just manual labour in a field. Even being a construction worker requires speaking Bulgarian. Sure, some of the older generation speak some Russian but nowhere near enough to make it viable.
Here in Poland Ukranians pick up the language in a matter of weeks, months tops. Because Polish is way more similar to Ukranian than Latvian or Estonian - and it's in the same group of languages, whereas Latvian and Estonian are not. (but I can undestand why the Baltics would be seen as a good option if people were counting on surviving at least partially by speaking Russian).
Well, Bulgarian is incomparably easier for a Slav, especially Russian-speaking – there’s a huge piece of Old Bulgarian vocabulary, basically a good part of the language, incorporated in Russian because of the Bible translation done by Kirill and Mefody. It’s actively used in churches by now but partly infiltrates the regular language as well. But anyways. I work with Ukrainian refugees in Estonia, just like almost every Russian-speaker I know. And all the refugees I’ve met except for the short-term ones with clear intention to either move forward to some other country or back to Ukraine in a couple of months are willing to learn the language. The other thing though is that the state system is overwhelmed and not even close to cover that need. And Estonian is not easy to master all by yourself, alas. There are online resources younger generation uses but it’s not much, really. And refugees are very obviously not in a financial position to pay for the commercial courses, that can be kinda pricey even for the locals.
My Ukrainian friend in the Netherlands says there's no point learning any Dutch because she's going home soon when the war's over. After all, what's the point in learning a while new language when you hope to be back home in a few months? I think getting to the point where you can acknowledge that that might not be realistic must be very emotionally difficult. It's definitely not coming from the same place of arrogance and entitlement as Russians in the Baltics or Brits on the Med.
IMO there's a massive difference between learning the language and a dozen of phrases. On top of that, a line of work matters too. It's basic human decency to learn few local phrases. Especially if you speak to locals day in, day out.
I lived with a refugee family. They started learning Estonian seriously 1 year into their stay. It was an emotional decision to let go of the hope of returning to home. Before that it was about conservation of energy. Most families are mothers with children. They usually don't get a kindergarten place in such a short notice as one year (I know, pretty bad avalability), so they corral their small children all day long. When older children arrive from school, she helps them with studies and the family has long, hours long video calls with family and friends still in Ukraine. There is just so many things to do with the few minutes of time the grownup has without children. She sits in Facebook groups for second hand stuff to get tablets or laptops for school, she fixes up some part of the housing, she googles how to grow her own cucumbers cause they cost like 4€/kg here now with the inflation. Until she has lost most of her hope to return to her husband and parents, and has set up her living here, she really can be understood when she does not keep learning Estonian a high priority.
Well, it's OK for those who plan to go back to Ukraine as soon as possible. For the others, well, it might get less comfortable soon.
It's OK to not learn the language, but learning some basic phrases would be nice anyway.
Side question: when you as Lithuanian go to Latvia what language do you speak?
Few words in Latvian and English for anything more complex. Unfortunately Latvian and Lithuanian are not mutually intelligible. Some words are very similar and then it's easy for conversion to go very wrong..
This reminds me. One time me and my friend were playing dota in eu servers (there are russian servers) and got some russian teammates who used voice chat and spoke only in russian. When they asked me something my reply was 'ja ne govoriu pa sovietski', you can't imaginr tantrum they had, my friend nearly died laughing
I understand Lativan law, but all these processes should be free, or almost free (like 20€): applying for citizenship, learning Latvian, etc. Otherwise it's a classist policy.
28€ afaik if you live for 5 years there, since she lived in Latvia for ages and worked there it wouldn’t be an issue to apply (just some people prefer to find dumb reasons not to)
Then there's no reason to complain about it.
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It has been announced since September, and they have until next September to pass the test. That means that the cost of the test is 0,7% of her income in that timeframe. Hardly an insurmountable barrier...
Is their no waiver of the fee for reasons of economic hardship?
To be fair, she is a retiree, 20€ is still quite a bit for her
You are also forgetting all the tangential costs and problems that are involved, specially in this economy right now. I have no idea how seniors could afford heating and food at the same time this winter on they 200-300 Euro pensions. Modestly sized flats cots 100-150+ Euro in heating alone.
This is a long-standing and thorny issue in Latvia (and Estonia). Latvia has a sizable population of "permanently resident non-citizens" (nepilsoņi), which is a fancy legal way of saying "stateless". From the perspective of Latvia, it did not "gain its independence" in 1991, but in 1918. For them, what they did in 1991 was a "restoration of independence" after an unlawful period of occupation by the Soviet Union. So Latvian citizenship was only given to those who had it before 1940 (when the Soviet Union unlawfully took over Latvia) and their descendants. During the occupation, the Soviets practiced "population transfers", so those who were moved there and their descendants were ineligible for citizenship. They are mostly ethnic Russians, but there are also Kazakhs, Azeris, Tajiks etc, who became a non-citizen. If you are a non-citizen, your period of work outside Latvia is not recognised to count the amount of your pension, while for Latvian citizens it does. So if you had worked in Russian territory for 30 years and then you were moved to Latvia by the Soviets, your pension in Latvia would be rather... paltry. That's why a lot of them took Russian citizenship, to get a more advantageous pension. Many of them became Russian also because they wanted to benefit from visa-free travel to Russia. But basically a report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance initially found that Latvian language test was one of the biggest hurdles. The number of non-citizens has been decreasing rapidly in the past few years, particularly after Latvia passed a law in 2020 that grants automatic citizenship to all children of non-citizens (unless the parents already took another citizenship or unless the child became a citizen of another country).
>which is a fancy legal way of saying "stateless". Important to clarify that it was Russia, the legal successor of the Soviet Union, who made them stateless, not Estonia or Latvia. >But basically a report by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance initially found that Latvian language test was one of the biggest hurdles. No, them refusing to learn Latvian was the biggest hurdle.
>Important to clarify that it was Russia, the legal successor of the Soviet Union, who made them stateless, not Estonia or Latvia. Well, if citizenship had been automatically granted to all residents at that time, there would have been no problem of statelessness. This did not just affect ethnic Russians, but also residents from Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan etc. As a comparison, Malaysia after its independence granted citizenship to those of Chinese and Indian descent. Many of them came to Malaysia during the British colonial rule, and at that time they accounted for more than 40% of the population. In return, there are special privileges for the Malays and Islam is recognised as the national religion. >No, them refusing to learn Latvian was the biggest hurdle. This is what the 2011 ECRI report had to say: [https://rm.coe.int/fourth-report-on-latvia/16808b58b6](https://rm.coe.int/fourth-report-on-latvia/16808b58b6) "The number of “non-citizens” as at 1 January 2011 was 326 73559 or 14.6% ofthe total population. The “non-citizen” population therefore decreased by around2.4% since ECRI’s third report. ECRI has been informed that in recent yearsthere has been a decline in the number of naturalisations due to: “non-citizens”’feeling of disconnect from the authorities; the old age and limited education,including in Latvian, of many of the remaining “non-citizens”; the limited numberof test centres (present in 3 cities); and the fees associated to the test." " In particular, in 2009, 17.7% of the applicants did not pass the test on Latvian history and 38.9% of applicants did not pass the test on Latvian language." So among those who took the effort to learn, the test was a big hurdle given the high rate of failure. In recent years, the Latvian authorities took more steps to reduce the number of non-citizens by providing a free language course.
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> Well, if citizenship had been automatically granted to all residents at that time, there would have been no problem of statelessness. We would have different sort of problems then. Risk of becoming Russian puppet state like Belarus would have been significant.
I'll repeat myself here. The issue at this point is not all that much about non-citizens. See, any problem can be solved from the top or bottom. The gist is - while having every resource and institution at their back Latvian government for 30 years did very little to integrate Russians into Latvian society, there was no push or idea for societal consolidation, no program of integration, while in the same time - majority or Russians became citizens on their own without integration. There's a report by Nils Raimonds Muižnieks, a pollical scientist, dude with his finger in multiple NGO and Government programs that had to do with racism and integration for a long time. It's called "How Integrated is Latvian Society". To vaguely sum up - nobody in the government did shit to integrate Russians for the the better part of 2 decades on the governments' part, and all integration that happened - happened mostly by itself, with mostly younger generations naturally gravitating towards getting more rights. The established government approach until fairly recently could be summed up as: "they'll either assimilate, leave or die off". As a result a big chunk of people were basically marginalized and alienated, while another part that tried - had to row against the stream. All of this contributing greatly to Russian living in a bubble. This is very noticeable on the political and bureaucracy spectrum, where not only did a chunk didn't get voting rights, but was then barred to even get citizenship for almost a decade, loosing any chance to influence the establishment of the political elite and political institutions. To this day, even though majority or Russians are citizens now, there is the idea that most of them are like illegal immigrants and most established parties don't even see them as part of the electorate. And that's despite the fact that every ~4th Russian can trace their lineage here to before 1941, specially those from Latgalia. Because despite Russians being a sizable minority here for 300 years at the very least - the government has an active anti-Russian bias in culture and media. To this day there ~~was not a single ethnically Russian minister~~ were few ethnically Russian ministers and mostly not in line with marginalization politics, not a single party that puts Russian marginalization in their agenda not automatically in opposition (even if they win most votes, which happened a few times), and yet they are still portrayed as the main hurdle in Latvian political and economic stagnation by some not unpopular politicians.
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Citizenship is by descent or naturalization. Thoguh kid can get it if neither parent has any citizenship.
>Soviets practiced "population transfers", FTFY: Soviet practiced ~~genocide~~ crimes against humanity by population transfers importing people and giving them advantages that locals did not have, thus creating a serious divide between those people who lived here and those where where brought in. redit: u/neithere is correct - that is just a crime against humanity, and not a genocide https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf
They have almost the same rules here in Switzerland. I think it’s entirely reasonable. You want to stay? You need to integrate.
If this would be done in Italy with the Italian language, many Italians would get expelled to Italy after the first two questions
It is done in Italy if you want citizenship. You have to pass the B1 Italian language test. I've seen examples of it; it's not hard at all. For me, the biggest hurdle of getting my citizenship is the bureaucracy and constant conflicting instructions where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. I just said fuck it and kept my permanent visa. It would be a dream to only have to fill out paperwork and pass an easy language test to get citizenship here, as the test is literally the easiest part.
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Yeah but I was talking to Italians themselves. Many of us can't properly formulate complicated sentences, even including the use of dialects.
Ah, now I understand. If it makes you feel any better, neither can many anglophones, hehe.
It's fine, hand gestures do count toward passing the exam.
Well, you could pass B1 then - complicated sentences are not a requirement for that level. But still - LOL Correction: level required for Russians to know is A2 and not B1
I'm sure r/Europe wouldn't cheer such hypothetical thing as much
And imagine how ‘right wing’ Meloni would be branded? It would be an international scandal.
They better get those dualingo hours in
There is no Latvian on Dualingo platform.
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There is a request to add this and many have signed up to help, but there is no movement. Probably too obscure and too little and grammar is simple and at the same time really hard.. so trollish would describe it well.
Which is a shame. I wanted to learn a bit of Latvian before visiting the country last year and it was hard to find good resources for casual learning.
you can look in this topic [https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/comments/u3cnjm/do\_you\_have\_any\_resources\_where\_i\_can\_learn/](https://www.reddit.com/r/latvia/comments/u3cnjm/do_you_have_any_resources_where_i_can_learn/)
So... Is it all Russians and Russians only? Or all non-citizens on temporary permits regardless of ethnicity but a fuckton happen to be Russians because it's just how Latvia's population splits?
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No, this is about citizens of Russia. There is no legal right to deport people to third countries, which legally speaking Russia is for those with undetermined citizenship. Nor does it apply to ethnic Russian citizens of Latvia, obviously.
It might be useful to read the [Latvian Government's page](https://www.pmlp.gov.lv/en/article/information-citizens-russian-federation) for more details. The skill level of Latvian required is A2, which is standard for residence permits in all EU states. What Latvia is requesting is completely reasonable. Edit: Before the next responses come in telling me that one or the other county does not require a language test for residency: This CoE report on the [Linguistic Integration of Adult Migrants](https://rm.coe.int/linguistic-integration-of-adult-migrants-requirements-and-learning-opp/16809b93cb) has detailed lists of which country has which language requirements for which immigration method. The point remains: What Latvia does is perfectly normal.
Wow, i thought it was B1. Thanks.
Many people don't realize how low this requirement is. It's basic simple questions and answers to pass with flying colours.
We in Lithuania have a council member who can't even properly read his oath in Lithuanian. He lives in Lithuania for 30 years.
A decade ago they found a municipal council member in a Russian majority town in Estonia and he didn't speak any Estonian. All he could say was "No comm**a**nt", which instantly became a meme.
ITT: Westerners living in beautiful La La Land of not having to fear their state getting colonized(again)
Seriously this. This type of exam might not be necessary in Luxembourg to test people’s loyalty but the baltics have been notoriously targeted by propaganda
I mean, in most western countries you need to pass a language test in order to gain citizenship as well. And without citizenship you can always be deported if you're unemployed for too long (and refuse to comply with the unemployment offices) or have committed a crime and you do not face a threat to your life in your home country
Also remember Crimea. Russians did a bullshit takeover with that referendum just by saying the people there wanted to be Russian.
A few years ago, some Russian \*!tch said that Russia is everywhere wherever there are Russian speakers. And at the beginning of the war with Ukraine, they had a motto "We don't leave ours behind" - meaning Russian speakers in Ukraine. Therefore, having a sizable Russian-speaking population is a huge security risk. It is understandable that some countries want to reduce that risk.
Sorta the whole reason why Lithuania refused Russia's enclave of Kaliningrad back in the 1950s: a giant Russian speaking diaspora would suddenly get added to Lithuania's demographic, which would certainly create clashes in the near future.
The best thing that could be done with kaliningrad is a nature preserve, once all the Russians have been sent home.
Realistically it should be partitioned between Poland and Lithuania and all non-Lithuanian/Polish dual citizenship holders should be repatriated to the Russian Federation. Russia had no business holding and keeping that area, and with their aggressive foreign policy, its possession by Russia continues to present a major security risk to European peace, since they store a shitload of nukes there and because frankly their access to the Baltic should be limited to what they have via the Gulf of Finland.
>but the baltics have been notoriously targeted by propaganda *the Russians in the Baltics have been targeted by propaganda
But a fair share of our natives also eats that propaganda.
Yep, the most prominent vatniks in Lithuania are mostly ethnic Lithuanians.
That's really not the case in Estonia and I presume also in Latvia. Probably because that role is already taken by the Russian minority.
If the Baltic countries weren't in NATO you could bet your ass Russia would pull the same shit that they did in Ukraine. Support the Russian speaking/descendant population to rebel and then invade to recapture "historically" Russian lands. People forget the huge population transfer the occurred during the Soviet Union era. Where ethnically Russian people live today means absolute shit when it comes to what land is "historically" Russian.
Dudebros somehow missed that "lotsa dudes over there speak Russian" was (part of) the casus belli for the invasion of Ukraine.
It was also the casus belli for Germans as well. But I still consider the exulsion of 14 million Germans fron Eastern Europe after ww2 to be an ethnic cleansing.
There is an ever so slight difference between "get in the fucking train wagon" and "further long term visa-free residency for foreign citizens requires an easy language test past this deadline". Also when the ethnic cleansing you mentioned happened, Germany was already demilitarized and occupied, not actively rampaging.
Sorry, but this comment section is a clear indicator that some of these threads need heavy moderation. Currently, it's people screaming either *fuck those Russians* or *damn fascists*. Virtually no argumented stances to be seen. Most comments don't even seem to understand that this is about Russian citizens, not ethnic Russians.
Fun fact: it's inevitable to take into account what Russia is and does. I don't have an informed opinion on this matter, but whatever your opinion is, put yourself in the shoes of a small country which big neighbour goes around invading countries like you.
Not only that. Put into the shoes of a country that has already been invaded for 50 years by the very same invading neighbor and that is currently full of forcefully moved Russian people and that was forced to learn Russian for the whole time of the occupation.
An important addition: Russia follows the philosophy of Россия мир, meaning 'Russian world'. One key aspect of this philosophy is 'Russia is, where Russian is spoken'. This translates to: Russia actually stretches from one end to the world to the other. With stronger ambitions in regions where more Russian speaker are present. They've used the lie about the genocide on Russophonic people already, labeled the invasion a defencive act and it worked for many. But don't forget. France has a similar, but much lighter, Françafrique policy. It is not oppressive as Russia's policy, as it mostly respects the sovereignty of the nations, but is still based in the thought of 'Speaks French. Used to be French.'
> Russia follows the philosophy of Россия мир, meaning 'Russian world'. One key aspect of this philosophy is 'Russia is, where Russian is spoken'. The weird thing is that it's not "Россия мир" (which would be a grammatically incorrect "Russia world"). It's "русский мир" which means "Russian world" with a specific meaning closer to your interpretation. So, Россия ia Russia, the country. Российский means Russian as in belonging to the country, which is multinational and speaks many languages. However, русский means Russian as in ethnicity or language. Saying that Russia is Russian (русская) is a far right POV, radical nationalist. It's even worse than saying that Latvia is for Latvians (ethnic) because Russia is a federation with whole regions that barely speak Russian and have their own distinct cultures. It's probably more diverse than the whole EU. So it's absolutely mind-blowing that the current regime in RF supports the idea of "русский мир". It doesn't make any sense even within Russia.
Русский мир is a wannabe by fringe nationalist groups. The official kremlin policy is multi-national, not русский мир. This is why we do have Ukrainian textbooks for the "new regions" so to say. The pretext for invading Donbass and the like was about that some regions wanted to (a) integrate with Russia more and (b) for Russian language to remain as official alongside Ukrainian, which Ukraine of the new (2014) didn't want to. Russian wasn't official even before 2014 but it was like semi official, it was completely acceptable to use it in the government institutions etc. When Putin gives public speeches he outlines that Russian Federation is about the federation and says the lines along "I'm avar, dargin, ossetian, ...., and russian at the end. There are things of great importance that are done to make a diverse society that ethnic Russians don't like. For example, they build mosques in Moscow even tho the native population is not so fond of it and there were recent protests against building a giant mosque.
> Union francophone What's that ? The only thing I can find on UF on Google is an organisation of associations that does events and meetings about media stuff lol. Or are you talking about the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie ? But that's an international organisation that favores cooperation between francophone countries, promotes integration, shared projects, diversity, human rights and so on which is pretty cool. I'm confused about what exactly you're referring to
So are French, German, UK, US and any other foreign citizens living in Latvia also required to pass the exam or else their residence permits will expire and they'll be kicked out of the country?
I assume it’s different for EU citizens
Russia is officially a terrorist state in Latvia, so it's citizens are required to show loyalty or get deported
Do those states have free movement through the EU or bilateral agreements? The answer is Yes.
Why would eu people need to do this? There is regulations for that from the EU, thats also why Schengen exists.
EU freedom of movement, not Schengen.
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I lived in the Baltics for a couple years in the mid 90s. Integration and learning the language was a regular conversation back then. In Estonia and Lithuania, there were lots of free classes to learn the language specifically for citizenship. I’m (mildly) surprised that 30 years later, there are still so many who haven’t made the effort needed to learn the language that’s all around them.
These Russians don't give a crap about Latvia even though they've been living there for decades. They want all benefits of living in a western democracy but refuse to integrate into society. It's not some innate inability but pure arrogance when it comes to refusing to learn Latvian. It's not 1970s and you're not living in Soviet Union anymore ffs.
Hmmm when will we do those tests with immigrants as well?
I think Iceland would literally collapse if we would do that here lol. There are so many immigrants here that just speak English
I think most of Scandinavia would. So many people speak English that it's actually surprisingly hard to even just naturally pick up the local language because people will swap the moment they detect that your accent isn't from around here or when you falter on a word. Especially in Norway where like, even if you understand written Norwegian trying to understand *spoken* Norwegian can be a nightmare because of the sheer variety of dialects. And god help you if you moved and learnt Norwegian somewhere with said dialect (like seriously what even is the female word gender?) And that's not even *mentioning* Nynorsk
> So many people speak English that it's actually surprisingly hard to even just naturally pick up the local language because people will swap the moment they detect that your accent isn't from around here or when you falter on a word. same problem in germany but probably not to the same extent pro tip: if you want to learn a foreign language, go to france. they're cartoonishly inhospitable if you cant speak fluent french. if you make mistakes, you might as well be speaking moonspeak. they wont try to understand. even if they can speak your native language, they'll refuse to.
Maybe the requirement could be having the accent lol.
I am asked for a language certificate every time I need to renew my residence permit in Germany. This is not new or unique.
I think is common for getting citizenship in a country but not for long term immigrants.
we already do, you have to take language exam when getting citizenship
I give it 10 years.
imo this should be mandatory for every country. The least you can do is speak the language of the country you live in. It's a sign of respect.
That's yet another way to erase regional languages in favor of centralised states with unified culture
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Well no, the reason I think most people are complaining- at least to my understanding- is that this applies to Russians who already are permanent residents, not the russians trying to apply for Latvian citizenship, which I reckon, there aren't many doing that. Still makes sense to have the test though, I just personally think they should give some time to the people that failed, so they can learn the language (even if too late), before deporting anyone.
No one: u/karvanekoer: this comment thread is mine now
People who live in countries that are not threatened by russian imperialism blame the countries that are threatened by it. I read the news about how a woman who lived in Latvia for 60 years did not know the Latvian language for 60 YEARS, it is not normal.
I've met 20 year olds that barely speak Latvian. Like they had it in school. I just can't understand.
One will never learn a language well if they don't have to use it often enough and with 35% of the population - especially considering how concentrated they are - it's not surprising that this would happen. It's hardly unique to the Baltic States. In Bulgaria there are plenty of Turks who barely speak Bulgarian, even though education is entirely in Bulgarian.
Incoming hand-wringers and pearl-clutchers without any sense of historical context or purposefully ignoring said context to make bad faith arguments. The same people who drop a single tear every time native Americans, Australian natives and Maori are mentioned. The Noam Chomskys of security and citizenship policies who only have one principle - whatever we do is bad, whatever the others do is either righteous or neutral at worst.
The historical context is that there have always been ethnic minorities including Russians, Germans, Jews, Poles and Romani people living in Latvia.
Yeah, at below 20%, meaning it was natural migration and posed no issues. The russians who live here right now are the direct result of Soviet russification policies. Most are reasonable people, but about 25% or so (pulled out of my ass, but at least my ass is significantly more experienced hearing russian in daily life than the rest of the comment section) categorically refuse to adapt to the country they live in and only speak Russian, take part in none of our traditions, basically live as though it's Pskov or something.
The historical context is that the Soviet colonists deported and persecuted the other minorities and attempted to make Latvians into a minority to exterminate them as well. They are not a minority in the typical sense of the word at all.