Fuck Riga

Riga city has a brand new image and slogan – Live Riga. Developed by unknown German agency Embassy which is rumored to have some connection with advertising guru Ēriks Stendzenieks and his German office of Mooz – a company that for the past years is doing all political ad campaigns for the party of vice-mayor of Riga and oligarh Ainars Šlesers. The new logo and the “original” Live Riga slogan which resembles airBaltic logo or low-cost grocery chain Supernetto cost 1 million lats (1,5 mil euros) of tax-payers money. The mayor Nils Ušakovs is saying that this money was paid by airBaltic company, however he had forgotten that 51% of airBaltic shares belong to the state. The competition was restricted to foreign companies only while the newly launched Riga tourism development agency by City council that was officially ordering the logo is chaired by airBaltic boss Bertolt Flick. Can you spot a weird connection there? Next year the city plans to spend 5 million lats in public relations and advertising and it seems that none of this money will stay in Latvia. It would be fine as tourism has a total downfall in Latvia, however it rather sounds like it is again only a routine money laundering project of Ainars Šlesers. And everyone will be happy – Bertolt Flick will promote his own jet company with this airBaltic-ish logo, vice-mayor Šlesers would have distributed a big piece of cake of city’s budget to his loyal business partners, while the mayor Niks Ušakovs will tempt foreign tourists by shouting “this is how we Live Riga”..

Totalitarian legacy

Let me write one more post on economical crisis. As to the response to one comment, I have to admit that in Latvia it is a criminal offence to rumour or spread lies about the country’s economical situation. Two cases already had been open that were publicly criticized, but probably there are more and papers don’t know about them. At the same time many politicians with power can make rumors or lies, such as the prime minister, but no charges are brought against him. The first case was when a professor at a seminar expressed his views on crisis, the second – when a singer of a band on stage made a joke about the infamous Parex bank. And of course it was not that the security police was patrolling there but people who were present at those events (seminar, concert) denounced them, just like in good old KGB times.

On 13 January there will be a mass protest meeting at Dome square. Some youngsters made a website (it’s already been shut down) where they called to subvert the government with violent methods, for instance, to go to the parliament with molotov cocktails and bricks. Of course, secret police has started the investigation.

This country centrainly lacks a sense of humor which would be especially needed in such hard times, and in a lot of cases you can notice the signs of totalitarian legacy – the old-fashioned laws, denouncements, actions of secret police, indolence of society etc. People don’t change, capitalism has brought new houses and cars but our mentality is still the same…

How crisis affect tourism

Some of you wonder how economical crisis affect the daily life in Latvia, has prices gone down or up etc. Although the crisis is a main topic in Latvia, consequences of it hasn’t been visible just yet. However, there are some changes. It’s easier to book a cheap place in hotel, because they are not overcrowded. Prices in restaurants and food places are the same, they hasn’t got down yet. The increase of VAT from 18% to 21% might not affect the prices as businesses might try to cut their income rather than rise the prices, because the market is low. But still, the VAT increase might affect the hotel prices, as the VAT there will increase from 5 to 21%. It means tourists will have to seek alternatives, such as renting flats from grannies for cash-in-hand. Clubs are also less crowded, a lot of young people try to get drunk at home or on the street before going to a dance club. There’s also some change in entertainment places. Andrejsala, once popular hang-out place, has been closed down. Now youngsters go to Spikeri near Central market or to Aptieka bar near Dome squere. Metakafe is still working, as well as Depo. There’s also a new place Leningrad bar on Kalēju street – it’s made in Soviet style with old furniture, TV set and portraits of Lenin. A nice place in the age of economical depression.

Fucking flag

Flag of Latvia is not just a nation’s flag, it’s like a sacred icon. You can guess that it’s not that commercialized as, for instance, American flag. You won’t find a shorts or toilet paper of it. If you have such a business idea, you might end up in prison. You might get punished if you display it on a simple stick or touch it with dirty hands.
A couple of months ago there was a case in Liepaja (small town in West Latvia). On one of Latvia’s many mourning days a janitor displayed Latvia’s flag on a broomstick. He did it just because he couldn’t find an appropriate shank (it was broken or something like that). So the guy got a big fine for this and was accused of motherland’s betrayal. There have been also cases in the past where people were criticized that they have “touched” the flag unduly or at the “wrong moment”. It is also bad for a foreigner to touch the Latvian flag as Latvians will think that you want to make fun out of it. Latvians think that the flag is a part of their body, something very personal. Actually it’s better not to touch it at all. Also if you forget to put the flag out on a mourning day (well, Latvia has only 5 festivity days versus 9 mourning days), you probably won’t get any fine at all or very little one. So, our best advice – avoid the flag!

What about our soviet story?

We have noticed how actively and emotionally some readers have reacted to our recent post “Why Latvians don’t talk about soviet times?”. In fact, the most emotional posts came from youngsters who have never lived in those times. It looks like they are victims of 1990s rewritten history of Latvia, where Latvians are portrayed purely as victims and that they had nothing to do with the history or events of Soviet Union. This shows one tendency – instead of analyzing our history with “cool attitude” it’s easier to pick up only the sad side of it and forget the other side(-s). It’s like showing ourselves as sufferers only but forgetting what was our own role in maintaining the soviet ideology. Some people say that Latvians were collaborating to survive. Yes, but not only. Researching archives (and we have done that) we have found out that in 1987 the high ranked positions within the Soviet Latvia were occupied by 71% of Latvians. And it includes local “cheka” (KGB). Remember that informers of “cheka” were not just Russians, but anyone’s friends or colleagues at job, university students, neighbors etc. And regarding monuments of Lenin – it was local initiative, but, of course, purely economical and not political, because sculptors could get a lot of money for a monument of Lenin. Yet, you cannot ignore what consequences this avidity for money had.
In the previous and this post we don’t want to glorify Soviet times or to justify the fact of occupation. What we want is to understand that the history is always rewritten again and again after every major political change and that we (Latvians) have re-positioned ourselves in the events of Soviet Latvia. In this post we want to remind that suffering was caused not only by Russians but also by passionate Latvians, ideologically, economically or sometimes even personally (for instance, to denounce to KGB a friend you hate) motivated.

It does looks like Soviet times is still a hot topic and yet we cannot analyze it without overacted emotions. Recently released movie by Latvian director Edvins Snore entitled “The Soviet Story” is creating more and more noise in Europe. A few people in Russia, of course, wanted to kill the director, without having seen the movie. It does also reminds that this Russian-Latvian “issue” cannot be resolved that soon. And such movie definitely will not help that. But it will help to gain awareness to some historical events. It is understandable why Russians don’t like to watch it. It is a preservation mechanism of national identity, as psychologists would call it, to ignore some parts of the history in order to maintain the “desired” identity. Russians attitude towards the movie is as emotional as Latvians attitude towards Soviet times, and in a way there’s nothing to do about it. And if you haven’t seen the movie, try to get it (it looks like it might be shown in some European cinemas soon as well). It’s a good lesson for new filmmakers as it illustrates how greatly you can manipulate with images for illustrating some facts in order to create strong emotions in viewers. Obviously, watching thousands of corpses will make you sick (in that sense it reminds the infamous banned book “Baigais gads”, released in Latvia during German occupation in WWII), but when in a modern world it’s hard to impress, it’s a good choice as it will play on your nerves for sure. The movie is already a blockbuster in Latvia (and will be shown on national TV on 17 June), let’s see how it is perceived elsewhere.

Revolution is coming!

On Saturday there were about 7000 people in the Dome square in Old Riga. In a shity weather they all came to support the idea to dismiss the Parliament (Saeima). Those who haven’t followed the situation for the past couple of weeks will have to do Google on this (basically Parliament and cabinet of ministers suck in general, however they have crossed the border of being cynic, unethical, ignorant, selfish lately with some stupid decisions and bullshit talking, so some people influenced by propaganda of some Latvian papers and NGO’s want to fuck them back). The Prime Minister (the fatty) is a guy who has been blamed the most. It looks like revolution is coming. The fat guy must go for sure.