Tale of a Real Mayor

Are there any real politicians left in Latvia?

Not politicians, but statesmen in the best sense of the term?

Now I know exactly what is left.

And here one of them - the mayor of the city of Rezekne Alexander Bartashevich.

A distinctive feature of a real statesman is the readiness not to adapt, the readiness to express and defend one's convictions even in a situation where such frankness is fraught with great personal troubles.

Alexander Bartashevich definitely has such an ability.

This is how the mayor of Rezekne reacted to the demolition of the monument to Soviet soldiers in his city: “Today I am not able to stop the desecration of our monuments.

But in the heart lives gratitude to our grandfathers for their exploits in the fight against Nazism.

Let’s pass on this feeling to our children… I’ll be honest: until the last moment I hoped that barbaric actions could be avoided, that it would not be beneficial for anyone in Latvia to aggravate the situation, and that common sense would prompt the authorities to make the right decision, that a significant part of society would be heard with their pain.”

Unlike Alexander Bartashevich, I no longer believe that the Latvian authorities are susceptible to "common sense prompts."

Back in 2005, I decided to get acquainted in detail with the political landscape of the Baltic countries.

I was already very familiar with what was happening on the political scene in Lithuania.

The trip to Estonia left me with a generally good impression.

Of course, I strongly disagreed with what many local politicians told me.

But this disagreement did not cause me discomfort on a physical level.

I remember, for example, my impressions of a dispute with one of the former Prime Ministers of Estonia: “What he says about international politics, of course, does not fit into any gates.

But in itself, he seems to be a good man - from the category of those with whom it is pleasant not only to argue, but also to drink beer.

Naive?

Maybe.

However, if you look into the past from 2022, then 2005 in general now seems to be a time of sheer naivety.

However, no, not solid.

During my trip to Latvia, I never once experienced the desire to “drink beer” with any of the local politicians who defend the official point of view.

One of my first meetings in Riga was with a prominent parliamentarian at the time, a figure who "became famous" for his attacks on the May 9 holiday and the victory over Nazism.

I left this meeting sick on a physical level.

I had the feeling that I was poisoned.

Of course, there was no poison in the material plane - the poison was only spiritual.

Is a political journalist obliged to develop a thick skin?

I completely agree with this.

You can't be upset after every meeting with a politician whose views you don't share.

But in the same way, a political journalist must feel the atmosphere, "read the aura" of the place in which he finds himself.

The aura of political Riga turned out to be too intense for me (I consider it impossible for myself to use stronger and more emotionally charged terms in this column).

All my instincts screamed: local politicians will show themselves more than once in the most negative sense.

And they really showed themselves.

Here is how Alexander Bartashevich assesses the current situation in his country: “Recently, Russians in Latvia have been subjected to powerful pressure just because they are Russians ... Someone advises us to speak more quietly in our native language, someone promises to move to reservations for that we honor the memory of our fallen relatives who defeated fascism with flowers.

Others do everything to ensure that our children forget their native language, having lost the opportunity to study it in schools.

Russians in Latvia need rehabilitation, so I speak Russian.”

Of course, the Russians in the “new Latvia” were always under pressure.

Suffice it to recall the situation in the early 1990s, when almost 700,000 permanent residents of the republic in Latvia had the amazingly sounding status of “non-citizens”.

And this despite the fact that at the time of the collapse of the USSR, the population of Latvia was 2 million 658 thousand people.

An amazing number, isn't it?

Here's an even more startling number.

The population of Latvia as of 2022 is 1 million 873 thousand people.

I wonder what this indicator would look like if the Latvian authorities pursued a fundamentally different political course?

I'm sure it's completely different.

I see a direct connection between the suffocating internal political climate and the fact that the population of Latvia has declined so catastrophically.

The emphatically anti-Russian course of official Riga has long blocked the possibility of economic growth in the country.

You need to be friends with the neighbors of your state, and even more so with your compatriots, with the people with whom you live.

This thesis was very relevant in the conditional "yesterday" - at a time when the current acute political crisis in Europe has not yet entered its active phase.

But it is especially relevant today.

Alexander Bartashevich, judging by his statements, understands this very well.

Mayor Rezekne is frightened by “how quickly the crack is growing between different parts of the Latvian society, and the division is not only based on nationality, they are also frightened by historical analogies that we surprisingly quickly recognize in modern events.”

I am very glad that in modern Latvia there are politicians like Alexander Bartashevich.

This means that the hope for the best in this country, despite all the efforts of the political elite in Riga, has not yet died.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editors.