and that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered go to argy dot com slash usa also check out our youtube page youtube dot com slash r t america we will be back in a half hour and speak much more about all these stories in the meantime and christine for them. twenty years ago in the largest country in. terms of elizabeth's. must have been. speaking to germany. where did it take the.

heat he's. a charmer in her broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

it seems blanched used in the president's day it's pomp and fanfare drew a bunch of any other public holiday in the country on this day the republic's top leaders down it's a lay flowers and the freedom monument in latvia scarcer riga. informal events like tools for sessions held in the evening of the same day people who see themselves as the country's true patriots marched through streets closed to traffic for the occasion the perceptions old denies by the radical nationalist posse known as hold for much fear. however many people don't identify themselves with

the festivities they are russian speaking residents who make up nearly forty percent of the country's population half of them have not yet received citizenship rights. let me lindemann as a columnist for several months in newspapers he also investigates cases of public interest and publishes reports on them but even though vladimir holds a laffin cosco it is technically not a fully fledged citizen of his own country. this passport cover bears a unique inscription as compared to what is written in latvian it says your passport of

a known citizen closer reserve look at the margot is more on the main pitch in the english translation it reads daily and spends hours since last post or sometimes we are called just that aliens like we are from another planet even from the viewpoint of international law we are treated as such just at present there are something like four hundred thousand such people in latvia that of so cool stuff. mansfield became an independent state in one thousand nine hundred one after seceding from the soviet union. barely one month later the country's parliament passed a resolution officially dividing the republic's population into citizens and so-called non-citizens. the latter were denied voting rights they could not be elected to bodies of state or thorazine or work in government departments. this applied to not only those who settled down in the country on nine hundred forty but their descendants to. gain for me since i don't want to be a second class person i want to be

a citizen of the country where live from leave. any known citizen is free to try to naturalize for van't they need to pass exams on the country's history and show the command of the state language and the national anthem. after submitting over necessary papers applicants then need to wait for about a year before they get a cherished citizens passport. you see many people fail to go through the procedure that the milliner meant for one was not even allowed to see those exams. for the past five years and i spent three of them outside lot of the year why they didn't accept my papers but that excuse was absolutely unlawful. my fight for citizenship rights never again let even stage a sit in in this building i spent the day here and refused to leave after office hours when the police force me out of.

there was a time when victims are going off anaesthetist and valdis samplers a trauma surgeon who works in the same hospital. now zach loses latvia's president's daughter going off is a member of latvia's and she fascist committee. who was one of those religious can't bear to see the revival naziism in libya i can see it with the naked eye of the world upsets me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival not as a group of those ago it was. on march sixteenth nineteen forty three during the second world war the latvian legion was formed. thousands of volunteers in the country signed up to fight for the nazis. off independence every year on this date legion veterans have been officially committed to hold a parade in central riga. in two thousand and five victor

jurgen off and several other anti fascist plans in prison right still in the way of marching legion manse. the police dispersed all the anti fascists and let the s.s. veterans put the flowers at the freedom monument. forces but we believe in a free country fascists and their followers have no right to bring flowers to a symbol of the state if the state doesn't see itself as a nationalist. floor actions were in line with the united nations resolution calling for resistance to all forces that promote the waffen s.s. . with. some fourteen thousand veterans living in latvia today fords in the soviet army during. world war two. give guinea

she convinced there was a paratrooper event. as he moves to the monument commemorating the soviet soldiers who lost their lives in the war he make sure the nobody sees his medals. a law passed back in one nine hundred ninety one pounds the public display of soviet symbols. but. the attitude to us is just a bowman about your battles there was even a case where a uniformed veteran riding on a bus on victory day had to leave because the driver stopped the bus and said he wouldn't budge unless the man says that we did. the monument to soviet soldiers in riga was blown not in one nine hundred ninety eight he was later restored. the act had been masterminded by he goes shishkin he was sentenced to a brief german prison. now he's again free to walk about

central riga together with his son and openly discuss the fate of the monument. it's a myth to some people this is a monument to me it's a disgrace to the latvian nation. the polling is nothing that should be simply pulled down symbolizing that we are no longer occupied if there's no new it was over but. in the year when he got a shift in blew up the monument another event occurred that course the world's attention. for former soviet passes on a silly kononov had been brought before a latvian courts to face criminal charges face actions in world war two ended it over the years this is the order of lenin or they gave it to me for blowing up sixteen german trains when i was a partisan issue christian a traditional. in more than latvia the ex parties and was declared an enemy and spent almost two years behind bars. for taking part in the killing of local

volunteers they were helping the germans. kononov was acting on of the situation taken by parties and tribunals and nine hundred forty three. when radical nationalists came to power after the regime change and their lackeys started a massive campaign against entire fascists of people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition they were all to review the elcom of the war edition in order to whitewash naziism and fascism. i visit garder is needed of a political organization called the national front of latvia the front publishes a newspaper founded by him. that's weekends and during public holidays volunteers hand out free copies to anyone willing to read the paper. its name contains three

d.'s they stand for de occupation they call in isolation and the russification. for a long time talk to god or towards ethics at the academy of culture some of his former students a regular contributors to the newspaper. now under their chief editors guidance they spend no effort in a bid to oppose what they call russian dominance in latvia vs the ethnic lothians make up fifty percent of the population of their own contract to the other fifty percent occupies backs about russian. police it's necessary to create uncountable conditions for their birth but we need a situation where latvian society rejects occupiers moreover we need a law on the whole his asian google we must say to each of them we give you a deadline to get out of here so it's. cameron north a british filmmaker decided to make a personal investigation into. the into ethnic relations between russians and land

finns. he shot a documentary called latvia in hitler's footsteps way draws uncomfortable parallels between present day latvia and nazi germany. during the second world war and of that. they must go. as a must be rather than. why not for. some things they would like to say is nationalistic mad be the languages of the singers or of the tunes they had. the things about and some rights i'm not sure if you're not a citizen and called some thirty six of the drops and the coordination of things where you are discriminated against because your employer. yuri alex sanz

mother is latvian but his father is russian he has a perfect command of both languages. he received an excellent education both as an engineer and as a journalist his son is a school people. papa tell me what the sentence means. is often at the loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in mat fee and. the internet translator says it means headline well yes that's a possibility. a country schools were formed in the middle of the past decade. russian textbooks were hastily replaced with latvian ones. now more than half of the subjects in russian language schools are supposed to be taught in latvian. the oath grew whenever a russian teaches with a ball commander the levy language teach such difficult subjects as the medics

physics and chemistry were to russian school children it brings misery which are both teachers and students with hidden from within or to new people. in the course of education reform nearly all old textbooks were advised and many russian language schools closed down numerous protest acts had no effect the decisions of life is education ministry will find. so far inspectors have been shown up in many russian schools and all subjects are still taught in russian. mafia language textbooks approved on the education ministry can be seen in full view but they are only for show. militia cough is the first russian mayor of riga since independence twenty years ago he too had to close schools down including schools for russian speaking students but it didn't lead to any actions of protest

in that instance schools were shot solely for economic all round the demographic reasons half of the classrooms in one third of all schools had no people's. will give up in what was so many of the decisions taken by the previous mayor were largely politically motivated that was the basis for decisions about whether schools should be closed down rules when we merge schools we make a great deal of effort to accommodate all the children in the new building of city we also do all we can to retain jobs for the teachers who was most well in the old days they just closed tools down and that was that there was to remove. the fact that the russian was elected mayor of the land in capital in the summer of two thousand and nine surprised many politicians journalists put it down to the economic crisis. those who had felt it. severe impact we're not taking as much notice of the nationality of the politician as they used to. use the move if

in the early one nine hundred ninety s. they have not made the mistake of dividing the people into citizens of a non-citizen some with what the politicians would have been compelled to talk about the economy social issues and structural reforms instead of harping on the theme of latvians and russians every two or four years obama should we would have been able to deal with pressing issues much earlier and much more efficiently or put still have to contend with economic issues corruption and many other things. despite its small size there was scores of major industrial plants and soviet latvia. three of them which employ between ten and fifteen thousand workers each specialized in l.a. tronics. another one made minivans which were used as ambulances throughout the soviet union. today their production line stand idle.

factory workers an engine is one of the small business. plans for years highly skilled professionals have left the country in search of a job. culture is that so much as i can recall the right side of the deal is u.s. president barack obama still an honorable recipient of the nobel peace prize to be fair he inherited two wars from assuming office.

under the soviets this factory provided jobs for twelve thousand workers it made radio sense radio cassette players and tape recorders to cater to the needs of people across the soviet union. by the late one nine hundred eighty s. several plans making radio and electronic equipment had been set up in latvia they were the soviet union's most advanced enterprises would not know of the goober in soviet times i worked in a similar oratory for about fifteen years but of course i only saw the break up of the soviet union in europe there were close to eight hundred employees in the design bureau where i myself was employed and where you have no you can see what's left of its former splendor the only one design a working here though. when lanphier achieved independence the republic's

government began closing down its industrial giants the new regime expected more than compact and mobile enterprises to replace the old sluggish and largely outdated soviet factories but they were never built in adequate numbers. yeah during the first five years of independence many enterprises which turned into scrap metal over the levee has sold it off cheap in lived off the money real estate and land were also soldiering this time which was the summit biggest source of funds during another five year period we will probably hear a lot on lines just before the country join the european union and avalanche of capital and low interest credit came in here when they were not meant to develop production instead they were channelled into land in real estate as a result wind it up in the situation.

similar processes were going on in agriculture under the soviet government latvian collective farm supplied the republic with basic food stuffs today half are imported. he is the world vision's are from spain it's a mother's a from the netherlands gazer from spain with the key canvas from the netherlands to. be hard put to find to mystically produced vegetables here truth and pineapples don't grow the. onions were already being grown in latvia when the netherlands did not yet exist. after the declaration of independence the latvian government downsized agriculture and betting on individual farms the land belonging to collective farms was given back to former owners all their descendants under restitution plan. but most of them simply didn't bother to

get into the difficult is that it's a farming and instead prefer to sell off a new quad land or mortgage it. pursuing your people have been abandoned the farm stands at the level pretty abandoned about sixty percent of them was young people not keen to go back to the countryside or future here some get an education others find a job and school grant to make commitments and things that i think it's. the village of congolese is in let's. one of the country's poorest regions local peasants used to regard themselves almost as urban dwellers they lived in flats with almost no minutes he's now one in every two flats is vacant. the local boiler houseplants doesn't work the few people who still live here have to heat their homes with firewood. sometimes i fetch firewood once a day sometimes i do it twice

a day and then i don't do it for three or four days my grandchildren have me a helping hand when they were little i would bring firewood by cart. and fisa has five children and none of them live in latvia now they're trying to make money in western europe. and pieces spends her pension to feed her grandchildren she likes talking about her big family which is now scattered around the world that i worked with that this is my daughter to give me over that's. in the high yield. and here is a bit longer and good company and i guess there is my granddaughter. no one can run to work there she left these little things in my care this boy was one year old and that one was in the third grade. their dad for god knows where so i raise them on my own that. people have no jobs in

towns and villages are becoming deserted pig sties and counted so collapsing on the fields overgrown with weeds. this is how each morning began victoria more and more until two thousand and eight. flats in a nineteenth century building in the old parts of riga was once considered prestigious pool where you young people years until the move they paid back of course. after latvia declared independence old houses were given back to their former owners and their restitution plan. they were quick to realize that managing an apartment house was difficult. selling a building itself was easy dealing with tenants was the main hurdle. the standard solution was that the new owners simply made sure that the building fall into

a state of total disrepair and then its tenants were evicted under a court ruling. today three years later there isn't any electricity in the house where victoria used to live she gave up and rented a small flat in a new building a school and i have to visit my old apartment regularly to see if everything isn't because the landlord has a habit of breaching and replacing the locks on the door. i also take some of my doom goods with me. but the tenants of the house have seen the landlord's only one since they filed a lawsuit against him in two thousand and six so far there are terms to win their case have been unsuccessful and the landlord lives in germany he came to latvia for the first time to receive a properties are difficult. thanks. the land in central riga is the most expensive in the country. this huge trading center is the private property

of a norwegian building company. it buys the most profitable pieces of land in lanphier and builds hotels and supermarkets there. for us now is the best time to invest has been very profitable. poor but they also have what they call the grey economy so that that's not the relief over and up and that's what this takes. off the land feed joining the european union in two thousand and four the economist started to warn of a new threat. they maintained that they were public might lose its economic sovereignty. about seventy percent of its farmland belongs to foreign investors the country's fiscal system depends on foreign banks. so when you have a scandinavian capital control some seventy or eighty percent of a country's banking capital and denounced this means it controls just as much of

its financial system with a book that clearly regrettably the nation has lost its ability to work in manufacture things like it was allowed to when that field was on the point of leaving the soviet union it was one of its most advanced territories with zero taxes lou in gold today the picture is the oldest six percent. in january two thousand and nine mass protests when the latvian capital. the world economic crises had a huge impact on the country's economy people demanded the resignation of the government when it could stabilize the situation. rosa pensions look cuts as well as salaries and social donations. these were due to the crisis is the result of the country's split into twenty years ago to pull you most from here that's why after the nation plays no part in the

country's life political or otherwise this is one cause of the deep process we're going through with a group of working. according to europe again it's six laugh it is the poorest country in the european union today. as local nationalists look to blame russian speaking nonresidents people are leaving the country in large numbers in search of a better life. clashes population has shrunk on more than fifteen percent since independence according to latvia's foreign policy institute each year some twelve thousand people leave the country for good. the u.k. is their most popular destination. the british still make it cameron north described the problem in his documentary. with

a lot of things coming to the u.k. . firstly the reasons is that economy nothing in life that was much harder plec good living partly because of nationalism in mad about nash's among them growing economy now the reason is that they get very good social rights in the u.k. . it's now been twenty years since latvia jeev sovereignty. but still independence day its most celebrated holiday and the freedom monument its main national icon alienates the heart of the country's population.

if. it is easy. to. see. what's.