from different poles

Among the Baltic republics Latvia has the largest number of ethnic Russians, which exceeds 25% of population. According to unofficial sources, 60% of those who live in Riga are Russian. These are the old believers, who founded communes in Baltic territories before the state system was established, as well as more recent migrants of the pre- and post-war periods. Modern time migrants from Russia also form a part of the Russian speaking community here. During the last five years only, 11 thousand Russians received residence permit in Latvia. Russia is a stable leader in the level of foreign investments that allow to obtain Latvian residence permit. The reasons of such popularity are obvious: geographical proximity, relatively affordable real estate, large Russian speaking population, popularity of the Russian language. Being influenced both by EU and Russia at the same time, unlike any other place Latvia is a great example of how the European and the Russian world can co-exist in one country.

Most of all Andrey likes to compare Latvia to Russia, mainly in the subjunctive mood. What could happen in Latvia, if the people behaved the way they do in Russia, and what could be in Russia, if the people behaved the Latvian way.

We meet at ALA Folkklubs, a place with Latvian cuisine and music in Old Riga. Medieval wine cellars used to be here in the old days. Arched ceilings, waitresses in folk dresses, local drinks and food add to the character of the place.

"Clubs with folk elements are very popular here: folk music, food, interior design, dances," tells Andrey chasing his words with local red bilberry beer. "It's hard to imagine that young people in central Russia will dance "yablochko". The Latvians are a very musical nation. On average there is one folk song per every Latvian."

Andrey refers to himself as a foreigner, who was born and grew up in Russia by chance. He considers himself a fully legitimate European. Back at home in 2010 Andrey joined a protest movement. He was not satisfied with the violation of rights, no freedom of speech, irremovability of power. By the end of 2011 there were more and more protesters. His parents, his brother and his university friends started to protest as well. By that time Andrey was well known in certain circles.

"They called on our landline phone at home and invited my brother and me to the security department. My brother got quiet after this story. There were unpleasant situations at the university, too. He was offended, cursed at, threatened, despite the fact that the medical university was supposed to be the temple of science. They showed me the screenshots of my VKontakte pages and said that I should have thought more about the studies or it would end badly. I think that after one of my blog posts FSB service called my relatives."

After the rally against falsification of elections in Ryazan on December 10, 2011 Andrey was detained. Once the information reached the university, he was expelled. Officially the reason was his academic debts, but he thinks it was done on purpose and he just was not allowed to retake the exams. Then, despite adverse health condition, Andrey was drafted. In the army he finally realized that he could not live in Russia.

"The flaws of traditional society show up in a concentrated way in the army. Arrogance, lickspitting, conceit, class segregation. When I came back from the military service, I started thinking about emigration. My parents were against it, they did not believe that I could do it, so I didn't emigrate immediately. The annexations of Crimea struck me as a point of no return and I knew it would only be getting worse. On May 26, 2014 I moved to Riga."

Rokkafejnīca

After the club with national cuisine we go to Rokkafejnīca, a rock café in Russian. In order to change the place in the Old Town it's enough to cross the street. In Andrey's opinion this café is much better than the others: four levels, three dance floors, good cuisine, free rock concerts at weekends. Sitting inside, you can see the terrace from the window. Outside everything is covered with flowers. It's raining. They are playing rock ballades.

"It was easy to move for me. I arrived and found everything exactly the way it should be. I felt as if I spent 23 years in emigration and then came back where I belong. When still in Russia, I entered the university here - Ekonomikas un kultūras augstskolas, which became the main ground for the residence permit. When I arrived, I knew only one person here. It was an Internet acquaintance. We decided to rent an apartment together in the old town."

Andrey remembers that from day one he has been actively looking for contacts. Entrepreneur club, couch-surfing, gym, language courses, politics. Two years ago he received a city resident card. He was offered a position of a development manager at the university, but he refused. It was a full-time employment, while he enjoys freelance activity. Here he also joined the rallies and made a lot of contacts in the political sphere. Later he entered Latvijas attīstībai — the only Latvian liberal party.

"I'm anarcho-capitalist and I'm against the state restraining its citizens in anything. Thus, liberalism is the closest ideology for me. Nevertheless, the majority of my contacts are among the nationalists. May be this is because they support Ukraine. At rallies against the war I met a lot of those people. The strongest nationalism is that of national minorities. In Russia, Russian nationalism is a response to the Caucasus nationalism. In Latvia, Latvian nationalism is a response to the Russian one, which is much more widespread that the Latvian."

In Riga Andrey continues to work with marketing remotely. He had customers from Estonia, England, Latvia, but his main clientele is from Russia. In three months he learned conversational Latvian and it shows in his brisk conversations with the waiters. On top of that, in Latvia he wrote a book that has a long way to go, like emigration itself, according to his words.

Singing revolutions

He came up with the idea of the book in the army. Military service was like imprisonment for Andrey. Although it took just one year, he understood that there are people and whole generations that live all their life in even worse conditions. The only thing they dream about is that someone out there will save them. This book describes mechanisms to liberate countries-prisons without violence.

"Unfortunately, the majority of countries in the world are like that. At the moment Russia is one of them. Here I describe why those who live in a liberated society need it. And how to build up a system after the liberation, so that those countries could develop normally. Now the book is available at Google Play. Later I want to translate it into Latvian and English. I even marked myself as a Latvian writer. Secondly, in many cases Latvia inspired me. Here I live among people who unlike Russians struggled for their freedom themselves."

Then Andrey mentions the so-called "singing revolutions" in Latvia and other Baltic countries in 1987-1991 that aimed at restoring the sovereignty. As a way of a protest against the Soviet power local people went out to central squares and sang folk songs called dains. At that time the live chain of people stretching through the three republics for 600 km was called "The Baltic Path".

"These people did everything they could. If you don't do it, you are responsible for the crimes committed by the government. The people care a lot here that is why they have good roads, medicine, etc."

"Do you think that the Latvian roads and medicine are in good shape?"

"In comparison to the budget, yes. Very good."

Daugava promenade

We go down to the Daugava promenade. The left bank of Daugava was developed only two years ago. Now the promenade has one kilometer long bike lane and a small skate park. Andrey likes to come here with a thermo cup and walk along the river:

"This is also a manifestation of free European mentality. I can walk with a cup in my hands up to the promenade and nobody will look askew at me. In Ryazan anything outside the ordinary behavior triggers negative reaction. Here unless you harm someone, you can do whatever you want.

We sit down next to the skate park. A group of teenagers performs jumps and stunts on skateboards. Andrey talks about pluses and minuses of Latvia.

"Relatively high taxes is a minus, if you compare to the neighboring Estonia, where the taxes are lower and the country budget higher. Among the advantages is social intimacy, it's easier for me to find understanding with people here rather than in Russia and the rest of Europe. The views and ideas are reasonable here and the borders are open. Those who don't like it in Latvia can move to other countries. I also like the equality between men and women. The equality that comes naturally as opposed to that enforced by law."

Finally we walk to the other side of the river. In the distance we can see the large letters "RIGA". Andrey is squinting and smiling. He reaches for his smartphone to take a couple of pictures. A drunk and poorly dressed man passes by swaying from side to side. There are a lot of them here, by the way. But Andrey seems not to notice it and keeps taking pictures of the letters R, I, G, A. We say good bye to each other at a bus stop.

"For the Russians from Russia Riga has always been "wow"! It still is "wow". Just look around!" exclaims she when we meet.

We walk towards the famous Elizabetes iela (Elizabetes Street). This is one of her favorite streets. Constructed by Russians after the Patriotic war of 1812, the street was named after the Russian empress Elizaveta Alekseyevna. Art-Nouveau houses with a touch of national romanticism are decorated with mythological symbols. We are sitting outside in a café watched by stone lions from a nearby house.

"I like to think that my family occupied Latvia in a feminine way. By its beauty… My grandmother had six sisters. All of them were born in the vicinity of Nizhny Novgorod. And all of them married Latvian men. That's the way it happened: one of the sisters comes to Latvia, attends a dancing party, meets locals, gets married. One more sister follows her, then one more.

Natalia's mother moved to the Baltics following her husband to be, who was a sailor. Here she was met by her three aunts, who had managed to get Latvian husbands and property by that time. There were no problems with the moving. Her mother learned Latvian almost immediately and found a job in education. Natalia recalls her words even now: "Natasha, learn the language, it's not intelligent of you not to speak the language of the people you live with." Natasha herself learned the language much later.

"In the soviet time they didn't teach the Latvian language very well. When I graduated from secondary school, I knew German better. And I was an honors students. Nobody was pressing us. If you want, you learn it. If you don't want, you don't have to. Then we became independent. We received a birth trauma similar to that of Ukrain now. Because independence is such a thing that you have to fight for and we didn't do it. We were just granted it as a gift. First there was a gift from Lenin: the Baltic countries were set free because they actively participated in the revolution. Then, Gorbachev made another gift," tells Natalia.

She recalls the happy Soviet time when Russians and Latvians were a single people and nobody interfered with anybody's rights. At that time Latvians treated Russians in a non-judgmental way. Their children went to Russian schools. Now in her opinion many Russians made a mistake in sending their kids to Latvian schools. As Natalia says, if children study in Latvian, they become Latvian. They come up to their parents and say "I feel ashamed to be Russian".

"Nobody could predict that nationalists would come to power and we would become second-hand people deprived of all rights and citizenship in no time. Nobody expected that we would be divided into two communes. Nobody expected that they would start to ruin the industry, split it into metal scrap and throw away. A huge number of people became marginalized. They are the intelligentsia, they are top level engineers!" sighs Natalia. "And now we have just one big market: we go to Poland to buy and sell, buy and sell…"

China town made of flowers

From the café in Elizabetes street we proceed to flower market Sakta. "Sakta" is a name of Latvian decorative pin. Undoubtedly this market beautifies Riga the way a small pin can beautify a woman. "China town made of flowers" – that is how Natalia calls this flower market. It used to be covered with flowers to the very road. Now the market shops are concentrated in pavilions.

By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Natalia's immediate relatives had passed away. Natalia started to work in trading business. From the age of 20 to 25 she worked as a florist at the flower market:

"Your trading space is about one meter. And you should address a person passing by you in such a way, so that he or she buys your flowers. I remember it clearly, one person would make three lat in one shift, another – thirty. The competition was crazy, but the income was pretty good. Unlike now, when everyone is getting minimum wage. Latvian women usually addressed the customers in Russian and we – in Latvian. I learned the language out of necessity, so that I could flip people off in good Latvian. I also learned Italian. To also be able to flip off an Italian if need be. What are the choices?"

Passport of a non-citizen

The need to flip the locals off appeared in the 90-s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union she was left without citizenship despite being an innate of Riga. Everyone who was born here before 1940 became citizens, the rest were "the descendants of the occupants". Non-citizens were prohibited to take part in the elections including municipal elections. To naturalize the non-citizens had to make a pledge to the Latvian Republic, pass the exams in the Latvian language, constitution, hymn and the history of the country. Natalia calls it a demonstration of loyalty to the new government. In her opinion it's against Russian mentality to behave in such a way.

"How should I show loyalty to the country I was born in? I don't know another homeland. I was given a passport of a non-citizen – a stranger, a refugee, rifugiati in Italian. I'm a person without citizenship, I'm a descendant of Soviet occupants. The problem was not in the language, but in our principles. Now if people are obtaining citizenship, they do it to leave Latvia forever. It was a shock for me at the age of 18, I felt insulted and humiliated."

After the flower market job Natalia got married and spend four years on maternity leave. Then, she decided to work with clothes. In the pre-crises times together with her friend they opened a store of Italian stock clothes with old collections of famous brands. There were crowds of customers and the salary was never less than 2000 euro per month. In 2008 the world financial crisis struck Latvia pretty badly. As of 2009 the Latvian GDP fell by 17%, which was the worst case of GDP dynamics in the world.

"By that time I had opened my own store, but nobody needed me and my clothes during the crisis. People just couldn't afford a 200 euro dress. The real estate market dropped, the construction market dropped and everyone suddenly started to get bankrupt. There were two apartments, we sold them, bought a house, mortgaged the house, started a new construction, the crisis comes and everyone is deep in debt. By that time all of us had a Lexus, but the gas money just disappeared.

People had no money for Italian clothes. I had to look for other providers and turn to economy class goods from China." Nevertheless, Natalia's store survived for four more years. Natalia would have continued working, but her partner went on maternity leave and it became impossible to work 6 days a week having two children. She closed the store and went to Switzerland to milk the goats.

Duelist's glove

We leave the flower market and go to the Kronvalda park. It is Riga's central park located on both banks of the city channel. The park was developed more than one hundred years ago and is famous for its beauty and scale. We sit down on a bench and Natalia continues with her story.

"I went to Switzerland to learn the language and change the air. Before that I worked with my head and everyone wanted something from me. Here you turn on the phone once in three days to call the children. You live in a commune, learn Italian in natural environment, build muscles. I speak fluently, by the way. Some Italian metal musicians have recently visited us here and said "You speak so well!"

With time Natalia was lucky to find a baby-sitter job with an Italian family. The girl turned out to have truly southern temper and in three years Natalia felt like she was a part of her family. The work conditions were very comfortable. They worked in shifts of two weeks with a month of vacation in between. "Who will give me such an opportunity to go on vacation every month? I went back home and devoted all my time to children."

Not so long ago Natalia came back to Latvia.

"The children are in their puberty age now and I should be near in this complicated time. After Switzerland a lot of things are very hard to accept. Switzerland is a country of satisfied people. The change that you feel when you get there is drastic. Latvia is the country of hungry people. Take public transport and look at those intense faces. There's a lot of corruption here, an average salary around the country is 500 euro with high workload and the requirement to speak three languages, have experience, and education. Criticism of the authorities is prosecuted. I can't say that my government is corrupt without automatically becoming a Kremlin agent.

We say good bye to each other near the Pushkin monument erected in the park in 2009. The poet holds a glove in his right hand, which symbolizes eternal struggle and eternal duel. Besides the poet's passion for duels, the glove came to symbolize the fight that emerged between the Russian and Latvian communities when mounting the monument. A number of Latvian intelligentsia signed a petition against it. They say, it is the first protest of the kind in world history.