From: henry@bms.com (Henry Mednikoff)
Subject: Re: Baltic russian-speakers: small people's fa
Reply-To: henry@bms.com
Organization: Bristol-Myers Squibb PRI
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 14:49:58 GMT

In article 25@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at, sorokin@ps1.iaee.tuwien.ac.at (Zhenja) writes:
>The discussion of citizenship's problems in Baltic states in this 
>newsgroup has gone too far from the real people. Here is a concrete example, 
>that I am witnessing now.
>
>A Jewish young pair from Riga with a 5-year old boy.
>She was born in Odessa, he in Kiev (or vice versa, I do not remember).
>After finishing a KONSERVATORIA (sorry, do not know english equivalent) 
>they lived in Riga about 10 years.He worked as a singer (full classic 
>repertoire), she played piano and taught students in Riga KONSERVATORIA.
>When it became difficult to get enough funding for everybody, russian-
>speakers were first to be fired (naturally).Being musicians of a good level, 
>they found job in Vienna (not bad, since Vienna as cultural capital is 
>10-100 steps above Riga). They have foreign passports, issued by 
>"MID of Latvian SSR"(IMPORTANT!). Now they need to prolongate their 
>passports and they come to Latvian consulate. Result: since they are neither 
>"ethnic latvians", nor descendants of citizens of Latvian Republic before 
>1940, they are no more citizens of Latvia. They haven't got any other 
>citzenship, too. To get back to Latvia (passport expires), apply for 
>citizenship, learn language and so on will destroy all contracts they have 
>and make them unemployed, since they will not find job in Riga. Maybe, they 
>could become Ukranian citizens (there are no language requirements), but it 
>will definitely last a lot of time, too (because they've got only Latvian 
>foreign passport and Soviet passport with PROPISKA in Riga...).
>And now, what would you advice them, other than applying for asylim in 
>Austria? They have to decide NOW.
>

There is homeland for jewish people - Israel, so they can become Israeli citizens if
there are no other places to go.
It might be tough to go to Israel after magnificent Vienna... but the matter of fact
is: we live in the world where countries protect their interests through immigration 
laws (USA, Austria etc.) why Latvia should be different ?

>Morals.
>1) In international practice foreign passport IS AN IDENTIFICATION OF 
>CITIZENSHIP OF ITS BEARER. Everywhere in the world they are Latvians, but 
>no more in Latvia. Moreover, they are DEPRIVED of their citizenship, being 
>abroad. What strong resemblance does it have to the treatment of dissidents 
>in 1964..1986...
>
>2) Balts insist to be heirs of 1918..1940 Republics. But they are also heirs 
>of "Soviet republics", too, since otherwise all contemporary economic life 
>has no legal base. That's why citizenship of Latvian SSR necessarily 
>have to be prolonged to the citizenship of Latvian republic. This satatement 
>does not apply to the people living in Latvia, since they have only Soviet 
>citizenship.
>
>3) Such policy of Latvian ruling circles is a policy of double standard: 
>they take everything they benefit from, but try to reject the problems which 
>come along. This is a policy of cinical politicians, but not of responsible 
>governments and legislators. It is the same, as complaints of Ukraine, which 
>did want to have a part of Soviet property abroad and to be treated as heir 
>of the USSR along with Russia, but did not want to pay debts. 
>
>4) As usual, the results of current policy are exactly opposite to the aims:
>population of the bad-educated and ill-cultured russian-speaking townships 
>nearby communist "giants of industry", whom Balts want to push away, will 
>not leave, because they haven't got a place to go. To the contrary, such 
>people like I mentioned, go away, because they can find a good job 
>elsewhere. Could it be the desired effect to get rid of the best people 
>(unless you are a communist, of course)?
>

I agree with You that the discrimination of the Russian speaking population,
non-latvians who wre born in Latvia, is an ugly event.


Henry.