[lbo-talk] Latvia - Economic crisis spawns mass protest

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Wed Jan 14 23:56:37 PST 2009


You can't really compare the Baltic states to Russia, given size differences. A proper comparison would not be e.g. Russia vs. Latvia, but Moscow oblast vs. Latvia. The Baltic State's economies are also kept afloat by their being transit countries between Russia and Western Europe -- in the 90s Latvia was the world's largest exporter of aluminum, although it doesn't produce any. ;)

The Baltics states do actually have lots of ethnic and cultural minorities -- Lipka Tatars, Old Believer communities, Karaites, and others. There are lots of languages unique to for example one valley in Lithuania.

Christopher E. Doss Moscow, Russian Federation

--- On Wed, 1/14/09, Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk> wrote:


> From: Peter Ward <nevadabob at hotmail.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Latvia - Economic crisis spawns mass protest
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 9:44 PM
> It was apparent to me visiting the Baltic states in 2001
> that the transition to 'capitalism' had taken its
> tole there (though not quite as savagely as in Russia) and
> the countries provided an interesting contrast to relatively
> egalitarian Belarus (where I accidentally found myself
> without a transit visa), which I believe to this day remains
> 'socialist' (using the term in conventional
> formulation). And in 2003, according Channel 4 New (UK)
> Lithuania had the highest suicide rate in the world.* Facts
> Thomas Freedman seems to have overlooked, incidentally.
> Whether, from our complacent and academic perspective, these
> actions are 'sensible' they are surely
> understandable. And whether they will lead to a backlash
> would seem to depend on the efficacy of the police-state
> there--my impression was the lessons of the Soviet have
> mostly been forgotten or become obsolete and in this respect
> Latvia compares favorably to 'White Russia'--and
> whether potential long-term gains warrant short-term
> increased repression.
>
> *While persecution of ethnic Russians is manifest, it was
> not apparent that other 'ethnic groups' (personally,
> Latvia was about as homogeneous as any place I've been,
> probably thanks in large measure to the Nazi legacy) fared
> that much better economically on the whole.
>



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