Citizens of another country were hired to demolish the monument to the liberators in Riga
Latvia has done it. The monument to the soldiers-liberators in Riga is being demolished. The process is not fast, but the sculptural compositions have already been dismantled. And only the 70-meter stele continues to irritate the Latvian nationalists. People who took to the streets to express their protest and carry out the monument with a song action were “demolished” along with stone blocks. The police seized and stuffed singing Russian-speaking citizens into buses. Why not a picture from Rodari's book “Gelsomino in the Land of Liars”, where any sonorous song of dissenters is a threat to power.
Photo: Global Look Press
14 people were detained in Victory Park and taken to the police station. They were kept in the neighborhood until late in the evening, while administrative protocols were drawn up against them. The people were released at night. But this does not reduce the tension in society.
The day before, the President of the country, Egil Levits, said that “a Russian-speaking part disloyal to the state” has appeared in Latvia, and everything must be done to “deal with it and isolate it from the rest of society.” In fact, the president called for repressions against part of the population. It’s even hard to imagine what he means by the word “isolate”: send him to concentration camps or just create reservations like Indian ones? The president does not even think about the fact that quite law-abiding citizens of the Latvian authorities are deliberately and purposefully making them disloyal by their actions.
Just in case, the Russian embassy in Latvia promised to issue Russian citizenship to all those detained at the rallies. This will not save the situation; rather, it will speed up their deportation from the country. The bill on the expulsion from the country of all Latvian residents with Russian citizenship is now in the Seimas.
Alas, the Russian-speaking residents of the Baltics, apart from their own voice, now have no other opportunity to defend their dignity. “You know, it's not about the monument anymore… It's about the attitude of the authorities towards those who dared. Now we cannot “dare.”
Fists clench in impotent anger when you realize that you, a healthy man, cannot do anything. You don't even have anyone to talk to. No one is going to listen and hear you. Dialogue is not possible. You don't exist for ruling…
I’m scared for my friends and relatives, for my relatives, for myself… Because I don’t know who won’t return from Victory Park in the evening, or who will break the door of the house and take away. The masks are off, the hatred is no longer hidden. The touch of democracy and civility turned out to be too thin,” writes Russian-speaking Latvian blogger Alexei Gulenko.
By the way, a Lithuanian company is demolishing the monument. Because in Latvia it is Russians who work in construction companies, while Latvians sit in offices…
Meanwhile, the Latvian authorities feel such hatred for the monuments that they even refused to transfer it to the Leningrad region – for money. To the request of the head of the region Alexander Drozdenko, which he sent to Riga in mid-May, at the end of July, the Riga Monuments Agency received such a cynical answer: glorifying the Soviet regime…” – ed.) means the demolition or removal of an object in such a way that the object in question no longer exists, as well as the cleanup of the liberated territory. We apologize for the late response due to the uncertainty about further actions with the monument.”
That is, the monument must be destroyed so that it never exists again.
The Russian Union of Latvia has already replied to these “legislative requirements”. “You can break a stone, but no one can erase a memory,” the Union said in a statement. They report that they have already created a virtual 3D model of the monument in order to preserve its image for centuries and so that everyone can see it in detail by going online.
It seems that only this “loophole” was left for the Russians in Latvia – to surf the Internet. It's still allowed. Journalist Yury Alekseev told us about what is happening now in the country.- You know, there is such a bike: “How to cook a frog in milk.” If the frog is immediately thrown into hot milk, then it will jump out of there, and if the milk is heated slowly, the frog will not notice how it is cooked. This is how the authorities have been “boiling” us Russians in Latvia all these years.
It all started not yesterday, but in the 90s, when they began to deprive us of voting rights, then Russian schools, then more and more . And in the last five years it has taken on a total scale.
Some say that this is due to the start of the special operation on February 24th. It is not true. The Latvian authorities began an operation to dismantle the “Russian world” in Latvia long before that. They began by detaining and arresting the so-called LOMs – leaders of public opinion. I was one of the first. A criminal case was brought against me five years ago, they accused me of “harming the Republic of Latvia”. And under this accusation, you can put anything you want.
I was “made up” by the creation of the IMHOclub website – a discussion platform where people with intellect could share their opinions. Then they began to put pressure on various cases, searches, bringing in other well-known Russian-speaking journalists in Latvia, then those who collaborate with Sputnik. Already more than 30 journalists were subjected to pressure.
Then they began to pester the Russian media in Latvia. One of my acquaintances, who publishes a well-known newspaper and has a website (I will not name him because he has a family), said that they called him and said: “Be quiet. If at least one note appears about the monument and about the need to get out somewhere, you will sit down with us. Thus, they shut up all the leading journalists and media. Nobody wants to go to jail.
And then the rest of the population is given a command – do not rock the boat. If every day there is information that such and such an activist has been detained, such and such a political scientist has been arrested – well-known people – then imagine what will happen to you. And this is happening not somehow secretly, but precisely publicly – with a video of the detention, handcuffs, materials in the media – look what will happen to you. During this time, they thoroughly intimidated society. Those who now go to the monument are reckless people. But they are few…
– And this will be followed by deportation. The fact is that dual citizenship is allowed in Latvia, but only “with the EU and NATO countries.” And if they find out that you also have a Russian passport, then they will automatically deprive you of Latvian citizenship, and after 24 hours, what you were wearing, they will send you to the Russian border and hello.
This has already happened. We had a wonderful person Alexander Kazakov (political scientist, member of the organizing committee of the United Congress of the Russian Community of Latvia – aut.) He was driven to the border and kicked out. Although he has a family in Latvia. Now he works in Moscow. But not everyone has this opportunity.