russian hearts you buy from moscow our top stories to one year since the fatal slide poland remembers its late president and ninety five others killed in a plane crash near sundown with thousands gathering at warsaw's main square. and the site of the tragedy and loss our religious ceremony has been held people lay flowers or black which unscrews my father's to get that day. double

standards nato was accused of allowing rebels in libya can violate the u.n. impose a no fly zone after two opposition choppers are shot down by government forces. and another source this week a priest in finland faces racial hatred charges for speaking out against one of the world's most wanted terrorists and websites adding to his extremism. next in our series of special reports for the fate of former soviet states and we start with last. it seems blanched used independence day its pomp and fanfare drew it out of any other public holiday in the country on this day the republics top leaders gathered to lay flowers and the freedom monument in that these characters.

in formal events like the torch 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 of the first sessions old announced by the radical nationalist party known as all the 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 latvian newspapers he also investigates cases of public

interest and publishes reports on them but even though vladimir holds a laugh in a passport he is technically not a fully fledged citizen of his own country when you're only a snark was a passport cover bears a unique inscription of good order written in latvia and it says your passport of a non-citizen was a reserve more than a leg was more on the minute here just in the english translation it reads aliens pass our genes all supposed sometimes we are called just family aliens like we are from another planet or even from the you point of international law we are considered as such just as the president there are something like four hundred thousand such people in latvia course that of so who says. mouthfeel became an independent state in one nine hundred ninety 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 foresee or work in government departments. this applied to not only those who settle down in the country after nine hundred forty but their descendants to. going through since i don't want to be a second class person i want to be a citizen of the country where i live in the complete. any known citizen is free to try to naturalize so that they need to pass exams on the country's history and show their command of the state language and the national anthem if 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 a million and a one was not even allowed to see those exams. for the past five years and i spent three of them of a lot of fear that's why they didn't accept my papers but that excuse was

absolutely unlawful. my fight for citizenship rights were never again even stage a sit in in this building i spent the day here and refused to leave it after office hours then the police force me out of. there was a time when victims were going off an ether test and valdis samplers a trauma surgeon who worked in the same hospital. now zach loses latvia's president durgan off is a member of latvia's anti fascist committee. who is more than a possibility i can't bear to see the revival of naziism a lot i can see it with the naked eye in the waters of the world upsets me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival naziism group of the crew it was. on march sixteenth nineteen forty

three during the second world war the laugh-in 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 region. in two thousand and five victims are going off and several other anti fascists clad in prison robes to join the weight of marching legionnaires. the police dispersed all the anti fascists and let the s.s. veterans put the flowers at the freedom monument. crosses the. 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 want to steal our actions were in line with the united nations

resolution calling for resistance to all forces that promote the waffen s.s. . officer with. some fourteen thousand veterans living in latvia today forts in the soviet army during world war two. give kenny g. convinced there was a paratrooper event. as he moves to the monument commemorating the soviets. 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 bans the public display as soviet symbols. for. the attitude to us is just a bone about your bills 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's there go to.

the monument to soviet soldiers in riga was blown up in one thousand nine hundred eighty he was later restored to the acts of the masterminded by eager siskind he was sentenced to a brief time in prison. now he's again free to walk about sinful rega together with his son and openly discuss the fate of the monument. it's a myth that some people this is a monument to me it's a disgrace to the latvian nation. the polish nothing of it should be simply pulled down to symbolize that we are no longer occupied. in the year when we go to shishkin blew up the monument another event occurred that caught the world's attention. former soviet parses and vasily kononov had been brought before a lab in court to face criminal charges face actions in world war two and that if

it were late this was the order of lenin or they gave it to me for blowing up sixteen german trains when i was a partisan issue krishna traditional. in most in 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 that were helping the germans. kannan of was acting on of the situation taken by parties and tribunals in one nine hundred forty three. when radical nationalists came to power after the regime change and their lackeys started a massive campaign against info fascists as well but people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition they were all to review the outcome of the war edition in order to whitewash naziism and fascism and as usual pressures of. divers garder is leader of

a political organization called the national front of latvia the front publishes a newspaper founded by him. for two 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 de colonise ation and de russification. for a long time dr goddard taught ethics at the academy of culture some of his former students are regular contributors to the newspaper. now under their chief editor's 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 country and the other fifty percent are occupiers thanks to my russian. it's necessary to create uncomfortable conditions for them to 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 your. camera north of british filmmaker decided to make a personal investigation into the into ethnic relations between russians and that fiends. in short a documentary called latvia in hitler's footsteps way draws uncomfortable parallels between present day land and nazi germany. during the second of the. must go. but there must be rather a. lot of. things they would like to say as nationalistic and that the the languages of the things they were thinking they

had. the things about hands and rights in latvia if you're not a citizen and can't get thirty six of the jobs in the combination of things where you are discriminated against because you're in pure. beauty 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 a loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvia. 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 takes books 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 in language would teach such difficult subjects mathematics physics and chemistry were to russian school children it brings misery to both teachers and students would you commit them which in your opinion. in the course of education reform nearly all old textbooks were revised and many russian language schools closed down numerous protest acts had no effect the decisions of latvia's education ministry were final. so far inspectors have been shown up in many russians schools and all subjects are still taught in russian. math in language textbooks approved by the education ministry can be seen in full view but

they are only for show. new shook off 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 soley for economic or rather demographic reasons half of the classrooms in one third of all schools had no pupils. 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 was because when we merge schools we make a great deal of effort to accommodate all the children in the new building and see that we also do all we can to retain jobs for the teachers it was modest but in the old days they just closed schools down and that was that there was to remove. the fact that

a russian was elected mayor of the latvian capital in the summer of two thousand and nine surprised many politicians analysts put it down to the economic crisis. those who had felt it. severe impact we're not taking as much notes of the nationality of a politician as they used to. use to move if in the early one nine hundred ninety s. they had not made the mistake of dividing the people into citizens of unknown citizens that were 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 will be much we would have been able to deal with pressing issues much earlier and much more efficiently or we still have to contend with economic issues corruption and many other things. despite its small size there was schools of major industrial plants and soviet latvia. three of them which employ between ten and fifteen thousand workers each

specialized in electronics. another one made minivans which were used as ambulances throughout the soviet union. today they were direction line stand idle. factory workers an engineer is going into small business. plants vs highly skilled professionals have left the country in search of a job. when the names is not enough. when it's something really crucial. when you want to get down to brass tacks we bring you our special coverage here on in a place already synonymous with tragedy the world witnessed another disaster that left a country devastated. but united two nations in grief. question

more on. the world. bringing you the latest in science and technology from around russia. we've got the future covered. under the soviets this factory provided jobs for twelve thousand workers it made radio sets 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. of the insanity at times i

worked in a similar trade for about fifteen years ago thoroughly for the break up of the soviet union what they were close to eight hundred employees in the design bureau where i myself was employed or you know 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. here with during the first five years of independence many enterprises which turned into scrap metal over the levee are sold off cheap in lives of the money real estate and land are also soldiering this time which was a summer biggest source of funds during another five year period he will probably

hear a lot on lines just before the country join the european union an avalanche of capital and low interest credit came here when they were not meant to develop production instead they were channelled into land in real estate as a result wind up in the situation. similar processes were going on in agriculture under the soviet government latvian collective farm supplied the republic with basic foodstuffs today half are imported. he is below visions of from spain it's a mother's a from the netherlands gazer from spain with the cucumbers from the netherlands to. be hard to find mystically produced vegetables here true danger ins and pineapples don't grow the least 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 dated on individual farms a 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 business of farming and instead preferred to sell off a newly acquired land mortgage it. was just listing your legal have been abandoned in the farm stands for the little greedy abandoned about sixty percent of them as young people not keen to go back to the countryside you want to hear some get an education others find a job and school grant to make commitments of things that. the village of congolese is in that area one of the country's poorest regions local peasants used to regard themselves almost as urban dwellers they lived in flats with all modern amenities

and now one in every two flats is vacant. but the local boy louse plants 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 give me a helping hand when they were little i would bring firewood by cart. and fisa has five children 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 the world would this is my daughter give me a that's. in the high yield. and here is

a good lama and. i guess that is my granddaughter said if i wanted to and i went to london 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. people have no jobs towns and villages are becoming deserted pig sties and counted so collapsing and the fields overgrown with weeds. this is how the morning began victoria more than a month until two thousand and eight. flats in a nineteenth century building in the old parts of riga was once considered prestigious poor young people years on the move they paid back of course.

after latvia declared independence old councils were given back to their former owners under restitution a plan. they were quick to realize that managing an apartment house was difficult. selling a building itself was easy but 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 flaten a new building a school and i have to visit my old apartment regularly and 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 landlords only one

since they filed a lawsuit against him in two thousand and six so far their attempts to win their case have been unsuccessful the landlord lives in germany he came to latvia for the first time to receive a property certificate. 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. for but they also have what they call the grey economy so that it's not really over and up and the statistics. often memphian joining the european union in two thousand and four the economists don't seem to warn of

a new threat. they maintain that there are 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. when you. are a scandinavian capital controls some seventy or eighty percent of the country's banking capital and denounce this means it controls just as much of its financial system with what they say regrettably the nation has lost its ability to work even manufacture things was allowed to fail was on the point of leaving the soviet union it was one of its most advanced territories with zero debt exploded when gold today the picture is the oldest expression about what got you. in january two thousand and nine mass protests where 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. moreover pensions look cuts as well as salaries and social donations. please would you do this crisis is the result of the country's split into twenty years ago people used to tell me that's why half of the nation plays no part in the country's laws political or otherwise this is one cause of the deep crisis we're going through families with a group who work here. according to your again it's sticks lanphier 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 down more than fifteen percent since

independence according to latvia's foreign policy institute e.c.s. some twelve thousand people leave the country and goods. the u.k. is their most popular destination. the british filmmaker cameron north described the problem in his documentary. with a lot of things coming to the u.k. . firstly one of the things is that economy nothing in life not as much harder plec good living partly because of nationalism you mad about nationalism or of them getting 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 alien's the hof of the country's population. from. home.