Latvia wants Russian as official language | euronews, world news
Signature campaign begins Nov. 1 to make Russian 2nd state language
Ц˜š: голосов за €ƒсский яз‹к …ва‚и‚ для €е„е€ендƒма - DELFI
(the article in Russian basically said they collected 146k+ by mid day wed in addition to the 12k+ original signatured petition)
They collected the 10% needed to hold the referendum. Not sure if it passes, but it does have a good shot at doing so actually.
There are some bitter ironies in Latvia which are funny to me at least. The guy whom organized the referendum was deported from Russia because he was from one of the populist anti-kremlin parties. Ultra left, ergo bolsheviks the limonov party (not nationalists but bolshevists, yes) I actually think he did a great job organizing this drive for language recognition and the time is very favorable.
The other irony is that there was a census recently showing that more Latvians left Latvia while Russian speakers remained. This is due to a lot of the latter being stripped of citizenship since there was a language test instituted prior to Eu entry also the young Russian speakers couldn't leave post Eu-entry since they had no Eu passports. Ergo if your Latvian you can go anywhere and economics dictated you went to get better opportunities within the Eu but the Russian speakers were forced to stay altering the demographic balance more into their favor. Its a bit idiotic that the initiative to keep them stateless is leading to make the demographic dominance in favor of to turn things around right now on the language issue. Contrasting this to Lithuania where the number of Russians dropped because they were not singled out and given opportunity to sell apartments and leave etc, and Estonia to some degree as well.
Anyways time will tell how this ends on the language issue.
Signature campaign begins Nov. 1 to make Russian 2nd state language
Ц˜š: голосов за €ƒсский яз‹к …ва‚и‚ для €е„е€ендƒма - DELFI
(the article in Russian basically said they collected 146k+ by mid day wed in addition to the 12k+ original signatured petition)
They collected the 10% needed to hold the referendum. Not sure if it passes, but it does have a good shot at doing so actually.
There are some bitter ironies in Latvia which are funny to me at least. The guy whom organized the referendum was deported from Russia because he was from one of the populist anti-kremlin parties. Ultra left, ergo bolsheviks the limonov party (not nationalists but bolshevists, yes) I actually think he did a great job organizing this drive for language recognition and the time is very favorable.
The other irony is that there was a census recently showing that more Latvians left Latvia while Russian speakers remained. This is due to a lot of the latter being stripped of citizenship since there was a language test instituted prior to Eu entry also the young Russian speakers couldn't leave post Eu-entry since they had no Eu passports. Ergo if your Latvian you can go anywhere and economics dictated you went to get better opportunities within the Eu but the Russian speakers were forced to stay altering the demographic balance more into their favor. Its a bit idiotic that the initiative to keep them stateless is leading to make the demographic dominance in favor of to turn things around right now on the language issue. Contrasting this to Lithuania where the number of Russians dropped because they were not singled out and given opportunity to sell apartments and leave etc, and Estonia to some degree as well.
Anyways time will tell how this ends on the language issue.
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