can be negotiated and ordered some degree in. place. yet or. possibly it's not traded now but it could be in the future. past the hour here in moscow time for the headlines now italy gives final approval to its new prime minister tasked with bringing order to the country's finances finance crane purchase prepared to take the lead of a company their financial savior. no shortage of will have a spray and some basis to confront california versity following a national crackdown pro quality and compliant. thousands of egyptians are back into square calling for the military to relinquish its rule of the

controversial paper proposes to make its proud moment for election r.t. twenty years after the collapse of the soviet union we continue our look at how it's almost state's affair this time it's latvia let's start. it seems blanched used independence day it's pomp and fanfare to much 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's capsule riga. informal events like tours 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 and eyes by the radical nationalist party known as all 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. lemay lindemann is a columnist for several latvian newspapers he also investigates cases of public interest and publishes reports on them but even though vladimir holds a laffin passport he's technically not a fully fledged citizen of his own country run yes not with the passport cover bears a unique inscription with the bitter words written in latvian it says your passport

of a non-citizen was a reserve not any red rose more on the mint here in the english translation it reads really us business our problem times we are called just that aliens like we are from another planet or even from the viewpoint of international law we are treated as such just the present there are something like four hundred thousand such people in latvia this. last few 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 thorson 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. gain truth i don't want to be a second class person i want to be citizen of the country where i live in this

leave. any known citizen is free to try to naturalize the event 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 africans then need to wait for about a year before they get a cherished citizens passport. do many people fail to go through the procedure. that to me linda meant for one was not even allowed to see those exams. for the past five years and i spent three of them outside lot here that's why they didn't accept my papers but that excuse was absolutely unlawful. my fight for citizenship rights never again plenty even stage a sit in in this building i spent a day here and refused to leave it after office hours then the police force me out . there was

a time when victims are going off a nice the taste and valdis samplers a trauma surgeon who worked in the same hospital. now zuck loses latvia's president go to the north is a member of lackeys anti fascist committee. the possibility they can't bear to see the revival of naziism in libya i can see it with the naked eye would upset me most of all is that so-called democratic europe closes its eyes to the revival not as a group of political 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 the state's legion veterans have been officially committees to hold

a parade in central riga. in two thousand and five big to durgan off and several other had the fascist clans and prison rape stood in the way of marching legionnaires. 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 while. still our 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 forwards in the soviet army during world war two.

if kenichi convinced there was a paratrooper event. as he moves to the monument commemorating the soviet soldiers who lost their lives in the war to make sure the nobody sees his medals. a law passed back in one thousand. until one bans the public display of soviet symbols. the attitude to us is just a bone about your cheek or 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 thousand nine hundred eighty he was later restored the x. and the master minded by egos. he was sentenced to a brief term in prison. now he is again free to walk about

central riga 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. apologise nothing of it should be simply pulled down to symbolize that we are no longer occupied both. in the year when the good shishkin blew up the monument another event occurred that course the world's attention. former soviet parses and vasily kononov had been brought before a latvian court to face criminal charges phase actions and world war two did it or the latest 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 more than latvia the x. 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 of the situation taken by parties and 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 people who had fought in the entire hitler coalition it's basically because they were able to review the elcom of the war in order to whitewash naziism and fascism and as usual pressures of. ivors garder is leader of a political organization called the national front of latvia the front publishes a newspaper founded by him. better 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 q. patient d. colonise station and d. russification. for a long time dr goddard taught 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 feel ethnic lot of ins make up fifty percent of the population of their own country and the other fifty percent are occupiers backs my russian. police you with words it's necessary to create uncountable inflation's for them we need a situation where latvian society rejects occupiers moreover we need a law on the call is asian we must say to each of the schools 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 latvians. in short a documentary called latvia and hitler's footsteps way draws uncomfortable parallels between present day latvia and nazi germany. but also. during the second of the second world war the must go. version but there must be rather than one on board and i. would like to say it's nothing that be the languages of the same as they had. the things about hands and rights and not fear if you're not a citizen you can't get some of the jobs and 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 misha aiel is a school people. papa tell me what a sentence means. is often at a loss when he tries to figure out his math textbook it's written in latvian. the internet translator says it means headline well yes that's a possibility of. 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 poor command of the levy and language gordon teach such difficult subjects

mathematics physics and chemistry were to russian schoolchildren it brings misery which are both teachers and students within it which in your technical. 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 russian schools and all subjects are still taught in russian. math fin language textbooks approved by the education ministry can be seen in full view but they are only for show. the older 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 shut solely for economic all round the demographic reasons half of the classrooms in one third of all schools had no pupils. no you tryna go to demolish 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 was 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 it was most but in the old days they just closed schools down and that was lapse because the previous and. 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 into the economic crisis. those who had felt it. severe impact we're not taking as much notice of the nationality of a politician as they used to. use the move if in the early one nine hundred ninety

s. they had not made the mistake of dividing the people into citizens of the known citizens on which it was 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're going to should we would have been able to deal with pressing issues much earlier and much more efficiently or still have to contend with economic issues corruption and many other things and we're going to . despite its small size there was scores 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 lines stand idle. factory workers an engine is going to

small business. plans for years highly skilled professionals have left the country in search of a job. under

the soviets this factory provided jobs for twelve thousand workers and made radio sets radio cassette players and take recorders to cater to the needs of people across the soviet union. by the late one nine hundred eighty s. several plans making radio an elec tronic equipment had been set up in latvia they were the soviet union's most advanced enterprises group i know of the goober 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 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 were turned into scrap metal levy has sold off cheap and lived of the money real estate and land were also soldiering this time which was a somewhat bigger source of funds with during another five year period we will probably have here a lot of alliance just before the country join the european union and avalanche of capital and low interest credit kamal here live there were not meant to develop production of your forward instead they were channelled 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 and that korean collective farm supplied the republic with all basic foodstuffs today

half are imported. he is the go to jeans are from spain and there's a mothers of from the netherlands he again these are from spain with food the cucumbers from the netherlands the lot of this fact that you'd be hard put to find a mystically produced vegetables here true the danger is in pineapples don't grow the. only ones were already being grown in latvia when the netherlands did not yet exist. after the declaration of independence the latvian government downsized angry culture and bet it 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 instead prefer to sell off the newly acquired land mortgage it's. just the senior legal have been abandoned the farm stands or

the net has already abandoned about sixty percent of them 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 an end of things 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 chief flats is vacant. the local oil houseplants 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 firewood by 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 now covered with this is my daughter give me a that's. in the high yield. and here is a good llama and. the idea is my granddaughter. in fact ya 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's card knows where so i raise them on my own. people have no jobs towns and villages are becoming deserted pig sties and count the collapsing and the fields overgrown with weeds. this

is how the morning began in victoria more and of plans until two thousand and eight . flats in a nineteenth century building in the old parts of riga was once considered prestigious but years down the 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 realise 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 to see if everything is an accident because the landlord has a habit of brazenly and replacing the locks on the door. i also take some of my doom goods with me. 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 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 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 latvia 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 following up on this that this that. 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 the second or make solvency. about seventy percent of its farmland belongs to foreign investors they countries face school system depends on foreign banks. so when you plug it in 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 what it will be regrettably the nation has lost its ability to work manufacture things when latvia was on the point of leaving the soviet union it was one of its most advanced territories with zero debts was going to win gold today

the picture is the oldest expression now brother got a king. in january two thousand and nine mass protests way the latvian capital. of the world economic crises had a huge impact on the country's economy people demanded the resignation of the government grant could stabilize the situation. moreover pensions look cuts as well as salaries and social diminished. he says were due to the crisis is the result of the country's split into twenty years ago when he was put on leave that's why after the nation plays no part in the country's political or otherwise of the this is one cause of the deep crisis we're going through with the kooky.

according to your against it's six land that 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 filmmaker cameron north described the problem in his documentary. with a lot of things comes. first the only reason is that economy left. in life and that was much harder work good living partly because nationalism the i'm mad about

nash's i'm one of 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 energy sovereignty. but still independence day its most celebrated holiday and the freedom monument its main national icon aliant the heart of the country's population.

and the. wealthy british style. is not right.