reporter. well that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered that artsy dot com slash usa i'm talking to you it's ok it's you tube dot com slash arts in america and also me on twitter. will be right back here at eight. get up sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm charging bloggers a big picture. the

official anti up location giuliani phone on called touch from the. job like on the go. video on demand lucky smiling old girls. in the registry now in the palm of your. machine on the dot com. it seems blanched used independence day it's pomp and fanfare out of any other public holiday in the country on this day the republic's top leaders gathered still

a few hours in the freedom monument in latvia scarce origo. informal events like torture sessions are 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 onas by the radical nationalist posse known as me or from latvia. 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. clemmie lindemann is

a columnist for several months in newspapers you'll soon vista gates cases of public interest and publishes reports on them but even though vladimir holds a lap in passport he is technically not a fully fledged citizen of his own country. with the passport cover bears a unique inscription of that order written in latvian it says your passport of a non-citizen was a reserve more than a red rose more on the main peerage in the english translation it reads aliens pass our problem times we are called just that aliens like we are from another planet or even full of you pointed international law we are treated as such just a resident there or something like four hundred thousand such people in latvia this is. 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 after nine hundred forty but their descendants. going through things i don't want to be a second class person i want to be a citizen of the country where live in the full wave. any known citizen is free to try to naturalize for 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 all the necessary papers applicants then need to wait for about a year before they get a cherished citizens passport. many people fail to go through the procedure. glad to me lindemann for one was not even allowed to see those exams. for the past five

years and i spent three of them. why they didn't accept my papers but that excuse was absolutely unlawful. my fight for citizenship rights were never. let even stage a sit in in this building i spent a day here and refused to leave after office hours when the police force me out. there was a time when victims are going off an atheist and valdis samplers a trauma surgeon who worked in the same hospital. now zach loses latvia's president the north is a member of latvia's anti fascist committee. yours was one of those really did well i can't bear to see the revival of naziism in libya i can see it with the naked eye . upsets me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival of naziism europe as a kind word 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 riga. in two thousand and five victor jurgen often several other anti fascist clans and prison rape stood in the way of marching legion and. the police dispersed all the empty fascists and let the s.s. veterans put the flowers at the freedom monument. crosses the u. 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. . officers. some fourteen thousand veterans living in latvia today forts in the soviet army during world war two. if kenichi convinced there was a paratrooper event. as he walks to the monument commemorating the soviet soldiers who lost their lives in the war he make sure that nobody sees his medals. a law passed back in one thousand. anti one bans the public display of soviet symbols. but. the attitude to us is just a bone about. 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 mans that go ahead. with. the monument to soviet soldiers in riga was blown up in one nine hundred ninety eight it was later restored the action and he masterminded by egos. he was sentenced to a brief term in prison. now he is again free to walk about central rieger 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 following is nothing that should be simply pulled down to symbolize that we are no longer occupied. in the year when a good fish can blow up the monument another event occurred that course the world's attention. former soviet past has done vassili kononov had been brought before

a latvian court to face criminal charges face actions in world war two ended it over the years this is the order of lenin but he gave it to me for blowing up sixteen german trains when i was a partisan issue krisna judicial. 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. kannan of was acting on a decision taken by a partisan tribunals in one nine hundred forty three. when radical nationalists came to power after the regime change their lackeys started a massive campaign against intel fascists are people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition they were all to review the elkan of the war edition in order to whitewash naziism and fascism as usual for she is

a. ivers guard that is leader 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 d. or care patients the colonise ation and d. russification. for a long time talk to god or towards ethics of the academy of culture some of his former students are regular contributors to the newspaper. now under their chief and its guidance they spend no effort in a bid to oppose what they call russian dominance in latvia vs the ethnic lot of ins make up fifty percent of the population of their own country and the other fifty percent are occupiers backed by russian. police here with work it's necessary to

create uncountable conditions for them we need a situation where latvian society rejects occupiers moreover we need a law on the coal isolation we must say to each of them we give you a deadline to get out of here so that's. cameron north a british filmmaker decided to make a personal investigation into the into ethnic relations between russians and that fiends. 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. there was a diversion there must be about the. bottom up. some

things that it would like to say it's nothing that the languages of the same were they had to speak german so that you're speaking out there. are things about rights and not here if you're not a citizen. some six of the tropes and accumulation 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 percent means yes it is often at the loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvia 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. for those who through whatever russian teaches with a poor command of the levee languished teach such difficult subjects mathematics physics and chemistry to russian schoolchildren it brings misery was abuzz teachers and students with dignity and within your tenure. 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 landry's education ministry were finite. so far inspectors haven't shown up in many russian schools and all subjects are still taught in russian. math finn language textbooks approved by the

education ministry can be seen in full view they are only for show. miller shook off in 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 or rather demographic reasons half of the classrooms in one third of all schools had no people's. morgan freeman. 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 walls because when we merge schools we make a great deal of effort to accommodate all the children in the new building since we also do all we can to retain jobs for the teachers who was most but in the old days they just closed schools down and that was that your stuff but we knew from. the

fact that the 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. mr wu were if in the early one nine hundred ninety s. they have not made the mistake of dividing the people into citizens of unknown citizens and we've had all 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 we were marching we would have been able to deal with pressing issues much earlier and much more efficiently or course still have to contend with economic issues corruption and many other things. despite its small size there was schools of major industrial plants in 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 their production line stand idle. factory workers an engine is going to small business. grant for years highly skilled professionals have left the country in search of a job. well for. science technology innovation all the list of elements 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 in elektra equipment had been set up in latvia they were the soviet union's most advanced enterprises group and you know of the coup in soviet times i worked in a similar oratory for about fifteen years before the break up of the soviet union there were close to eight hundred employees in the design bureau where i myself was

employed but you have no you can see what's left of its former splendor the only one designer working here. 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 were turned into scrap metal over the levy is sold off cheap in lived off the money real estate and land are also soldiering this time which was a somewhat bigger source of funds during another five year period he will probably have here a lot of alliance just before the country join the european union an avalanche of capital and low interest credit came here to live there were not meant to develop production will go forward instead they were channeled into land in real estate as

a result wind up in this situation. similar process is were going on in agriculture under the soviet government latvian collective farm supplied the republic with basic food stuffs today half are imported. there which is below the jeans are from spain and is a mothers of from the netherlands the gays are from spain with food cucumbers from the netherlands a lot of these for the good be hard to find a mystically produced vegetables here trouper the danger in pineapples don't grow here is the list 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 baited on individual farms 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 in stage preferred to sell off a newly acquired land mortgage it. was just listing your legal have been abandoned in the farm stands or the now has already abandoned about sixty percent of downtown as a young people are not keen to go back to the countryside here some get an education others find a job and school grant to make of it something that. the village of congolese is in that. 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. the local oil house plant doesn't work. a 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 far would buy cart. and he has five children none of them live in latvia now they are trying to make money in the west and europe and faeces spends her pension to feed her grandchildren she likes talking about her big family which is now scattered around the world that i want to get this is my daughter to give me that's. in the high yield. and here is a little armor and you could be in the ideas that is my granddaughter i wanted to know 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 raised them on my own. people have no jobs in towns and villages are becoming deserted pig sties and count the collapsing on the fields overgrown with weeds. this is how the morning began victoria more in those lines until two thousand and eight. flats in a nineteenth century building in the old haunts of riga was once considered prestigious but where young people are spent on 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 but dealing with tenants was the main hurdle. the

standard solution was that the new owners simply made sure that the building falls 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 to see if everything isn't always that because the landlord has a habit of preaching and replacing the locks on the doors i also take some of my doom goods with me but the tenants of the house have seen the landlord only once 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 llanview for the first time to receive a properties are difficult. 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 latvia 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 really over and up on the statistics. after lengthy and join 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 a country's fiscal system depends on foreign banks. when you put a huge skid

a scandinavian capital controls some seventy or eighty percent of the country's banking capital and enough this means it controls just as much of its financial system of the regrettably of the nation has lost its ability to work even manufacture things like it was a lot of it when latvia was on the point of leaving the soviet union it was one of its most advanced territories with zero debt split when gold stayed a picture is the oldest expression of outlook. in january two thousand and nine mass protests sway 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 counts as well as salaries and social donations.

he says bullshit of the crisis is the result of the country's split into twenty years ago people used to come here that's why half of the nation plays no part in the country's life political or otherwise this is one cause of the deep crisis we're going through what the kooky. according to year against it's six lanphier is the poorest country in the european union today. as local nationalist looks and claim russian speaking nonresidents people are leaving the country in large numbers in search of a better life. mashes population has shrunk down more than fifteen percent since independence according to latvia as foreign policy institute each year some twelve thousand people leave the country for good. the u.k. is their most popular destination. the british

filmmaker cameron north described the problem in his documentary. but in the philippines comes the. first the one of these is the economy laughter. and life love is much harder but good living partly because nationalism in mad about nash is a more than building 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 to hoffer of the country's population.

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