In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times | Hacker News Reader

In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times

washingtonpost.com

100 pointsjmacd39 comments

A quick history lesson for those who haven't been to Latvia, this is a country that has been screwed by history in a way that is hard to imagine. First, they were occupied by the Soviets, with all that entailed, purges, gulags and so on. Then they were occupied by the Nazis, and things got a whole lot worse. Then after WW2, the Soviets again, keen to punish the Latvians for daring to "let" the Nazi war machine crush them beneath its jackboots. Stalin has some ideas about lebensraum of his own, and instigated a mass programme of exiling Latvians and importing Russians. Even today, they are still finding pockets of Latvians deep inside Russia, relocated there by Stalin, cut off from the world, and asking them if they want to come home. Think about that for a second.

These people have a resilience that no pampered Westerner can really understand, they'll survive this like they have everything else.

The history lesson is good context, but the "pampered Westerner" reference seems unnecessary, particularly when the article is discussing young Latvians rather than the war generation.

Especially since many Westerners have similar family histories, if you count the previous generation. My Greek grandfather survived a bout of ethnic cleansing [1], a civil war in the first country he fled to [2], a Nazi occupation in the 2nd place he fled [3], and a civil war between the leftist anti-Nazi partisans and the Western-backed government in exile [4]. So he had sort of an, "eh, I've seen worse" attitude.

Lots of American Jews, Armenians, Lebanese, etc. are not in the U.S. purely for reasons of voluntary relocation, either.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War

[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War

The thing is that some form of genocide was carried out during soviet times, thus suppressing development of the nations intelligence, with many from the best and brightest being deported/surpressed etc. Westerners usually does not understand that what ended in the West after WWII did not end in the Baltic states, it continued, just in a bit "softer" form. Yes, it was not war, but it was not actual peace either.

Well, I am a Westerner myself, and the war generation were young too, when it happened (and then, happened again). If this were an article about our Millenials, it would be very different, was my point.

Just the other day I was thinking how this, (I am Lithuanian) might have thickened my skin.

The parent comment does make sense, but even the young generation had to survive thru 1998 Russian financial crisis and many, witnessed the start of a new, young democracy. Heck, many of us were born in Soviet Union.

Talking about IT workers, we are often self praising as being as cheap as far-east workers, but delivering superior quality. Not sure how true it is, but there are quite few tech startups in Vilnius.

There is a buzz in Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn that is all too rare in the West, a sense of "the best is yet to come, we just have to make it happen". Whereas in Helsinki just across the water, the vibe I get is of a city that knows its glory days are in the past.

The same strategy applied to Moldova. But we had even less luck than Latvia&Baltics as we are the "the fastest skrinking country" [1], lot of young people and those who can emigrate are going abroad, as the post-soviet era didn't left much of viable bussines and we had to start from scratch with not so much money and neither much know-how. (for soviets Moldova was labeled as an agriculture country).

And if the soviet era was not enough, Russians didn't stop there, the military aggression continued, they occupied a portion of Moldova creating an enclave called Transnistria. [2]

Our asspiration to get into Europe Union are meet with economical embargo from the same annoying neighbour. (and not only us, everyone one the Russian boarded is harassed) [3] It's hard but we are evolving, but not as fast as as we would like..

It's hard to hide, but the Russia is really a very unfortunate neighbour to have. Really happy to see Baltics doing better after so much misfortune that we share..

[1] http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2011/10/27/earth-will-soon-...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria

[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/business/international/ukr...

Maybe if Moldova didn't mistreat Russians we would've never left- thereby contributing to the decline. My parents were born in Moldova, I was born in Moldova. Since we were Russian speakers we were told to "Go home." Along with many other Russians, Jews and non-Moldovans. Now a country that used to be considered one of the best places to live during the Soviet times is the poorest country in all of Europe.

Not all these issues can be blamed on Russia, look to Moldova's corrupt leadership for answers.

> Now a country that used to be considered one of the best places to live during the Soviet times is the poorest country in all of Europe.

Pretty sure Moldova's decline didn't happen because they told Russians to go home. Estonia also told Russians to "go home" and is now in the European Union and doing pretty. Belorussia didn't tell Russians to "go home" and now is a weird post Soviet dictatorial dystopia.

It seems here, if anything, Moldova didn't yell "go home" loud enough. And come to think of it, don't really remember too many of the Russians packing their bags either. Even to this day from what I hear many refuse to learn and speak Romanian. And when spoken too in Romanian respond with "please, use human language" implying the local population is inferior or subhuman.

The attitude that Moldova was so great _because_ Russians were imported in there and placed in administrative positions, replacing the native population, and without the Russians Moldova just fell apart is a bit silly. (Ok, not a bit silly, it is ridiculous). Native land owners, intellectuals, teachers, priests were deported by the tens of thousands by Stalin. Most died in Gulags. Can't blame Moldova too much for inviting Russians go back to where they came form, 70 years is good enough time to crash un-invited at someone place.

> Now a country that used to be considered one of the best places to live during the Soviet times is the poorest country in all of Europe.

Spoken from the point of view of a family that was imported by the Soviet officials, brought in to displace locals, given nice free apartments, good jobs. Yes Moldova was a pretty nice place to party. (They used to say "Go to Moldova, pay 1 ruble for a giant teapot filled with wine", stuff like that).

Telling a large portion of your population to "get out," especially when that population is educated and was born and grew up there is never a good idea. I and hundreds of thousands like me could've been contributing to the rebuilding of the country, instead we were told to leave- Moldova's loss is America's and Israel's gain.

The Moldovan Russians that refuse to learn Romanian today are idiots- my comment in no way supported them or anti-Moldovan policies of the Soviets.

I am sure this is a small detail on a grand scheme of things, but Moldova and Russia do not share a border. In fact they quite far from each other.

It's even worse than that. There is Russian army that occupied a portion of Moldova called Transnitria. Time to time they are trying to escalate the situation, like trying to take control of neighbour village, or killing some local people when some of their military is getting drunk on new year eve, this very scary for us. [1] [2]

[1] http://www.rferl.org/content/moldovan_man_shot_dead_at_check...

[2]http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/news-brief/3899861-new-t...

Which of these articles talks about Russian military getting drunk and shooting locals? [1] is about a Moldovan man getting shot while failing to stop his car at the checkpoint with no mention of alcohol or random shooting. [2] is about Transnistrians redrawing the border with Moldova.

In order to put this quick history in a broader context, you may want to mention that Latvia was part of Russian empire for 200 years before gaining independence around 1920. Soviets occupied Latvia 20 years later in 1940.

Statement about "Nazi war machine crushing Latvia" is not entirely accurate - on the contrary, Latvia was part of Nazi war machine: e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion_Day

Germans had many allies during WWII, almost every country conquered by Germans had some "legion" in Werhmaht(name of german army), even in UK there was some nazi/german political party.

Latvian Legion was not part of Wehrmacht, but part of SS. Big difference, refer to Nuernberg trial for details.

Wikipedia article you are pointing at clearly says "The day has been controversial as the Legion is seen by some as Nazi and the Legion Day itself as a Nazi honouring, while others hold that the Legion was a purely military unit fighting against the Soviet Union that had occupied Latvia in 1940 and was not itself responsible for any of Nazi war crimes."

While you present that as clearly Nazi. That's not the case.

Still we can go even deeper in history and found some historic relations between Latvia and Germany.

Legion was not "purely military" unit, it was part of SS taking orders directly from Himmler. If that is not Nazi, then I don't know what is.

Digging deeper in history and discovering relations between Latvia and Germany will indeed lead to better understanding of Latvian mentality.

I would like to add an instructive story of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignalina_Nuclear_Power_Plant there. It shows how new and profitable nuclear power plant was turned into a money-consuming hole by the political efforts of EU leaders. This story adds some additional point of view on the problems of Baltic states.

You know the old saying, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The fact that Latvia was part of Russian empire for 200 hundred years doesn't mean it was a part of its own will, just that it was occupied for that long. And since the Russia was an archenemy of Latvia, whoever came fighting against against Russia could only considered as an ally.

It doesn't apply to Latvia specifically, but I recommend James Michener's "Poland", for an idea of how middle-european countries were occupied by one side or the other. It is a very engaging novel, of course fictionalized, but it's much more readable than "dry" history :)

The result being "who owns what" can be very muddy indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_(novel)

http://www.amazon.com/Poland-James-A-Michener/dp/0394531892

Thanks for the insight.

> this is a country that has been screwed by history in a way that is hard to imagine

Who do you blame for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_Latvia ?

Why did Latvia fail to prosecute war criminals http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Lack-of-will-t...

Latvian here.

The so called "startups" that are mentioned in the article are just a fancy way of entertaining hipsters who are children of rather wealthy(by the local standards) parents. The Erenpreiss bicycles are owned solely by rich children. There is no way that can be called a startup.

> But last year, Davis Kanepe, 28, took matters into his own hands in Riga. He leased a crumbling, Italianate music school building on a down-on-its-heels corner in the middle of the city and, with some friends, turned it into a bar and cultural center.

I have been there, guys. Its just a piss poor empty bar, with cheap booze, full of teenagers, and people who call themselves "artists".

The constant comparison with Estonian skype makes sick. Its like saying that "Maybe US will be as good as Canada, because Justin Bieber is from Canada" whenever you speak about music.

This comment should be on top, it confirmed my suspicions.

Ah, so my appraisal of the situation from the image caption was entirely correct.

Wasn't Skype started by a Swedish entrepreneur? That's what I thought.

"young entrepreneurs, freed from the prospect of steady, 9-to-5 employment"

That's an interesting choice of words. I know here on HN (and in the $100 startup book) a common theme is "I lost my job, and then tried this cool thing and now I have a modestly successful business" and I'm sure that's worked out for quite a few folk. But I'm also sure a large amount young Latvians would be eager to find steady 9-5 work (locally) and it seems a little bit cheeky to use such a euphemism in this context.

well it is a euphemism but it is also jail.

working 9-5 earning a decent salary is something that can hold you up.. - opportunity cost to try something new or take a risk is so much higher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

The boiling frog is about as bad as low hanging fruit.

(The frog would jump out of slowly heating water, and picking the low hanging fruit first is a sure-fire way to get fired from your fruit-picker job.)

What's the problem with picking the low hanging fruit first?

The higher fruit are ripe first.

Working 9-5 is pretty sucky. I work from 07:00 - 15:30, so much better. The early morning hours are wasted being completely unproductive sleeping. I much rather get up early and get the work day out of the way. Your point still stands though, for most people full-time gainful employment is an enabler not a hinderance.

This article reads like an advertisement, reminds me of this essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Basically advertisment to http://riga.techhub.com/

Something something potato. There, we got that out of the way, let's move on.

That's about as funny as someone making Borat references whenever Kazakhstan is mentioned. Can we stop it now?

yer but if there ever was a single place and time for that comment, it was in a thread about 'latvia passions'

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