Comment by emilis_info | Hacker News Reader

Comment by emilis_info | Hacker News Reader

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I come from one of your "former Baltic USSR republics" (actually a country with a long history before being occupied by soviet Russia).

I saw the changes from gaining freedom from Russian occupation and joining the EU with my own eyes.

We gained so much from EU, I don't know were to start.

Financially: we got a lot of our infrastructure built with EU funds (roads, etc.), if you see anything modernized even in the remote places of my country, you usually see a EU sign next to it.

Legally: there are always discussions about EU legislation, but a lot of it makes our lives better. Most recent example: smoked meat products will be allowed to be produced only with smoke, not chemicals.

Culturally: I used to be living in a land of grumpy cats interested only in themselves. To some extent it still is that way (see http://imgur.com/z5rYv). However the open borders policy has a big ongoing effect: most of the people have seen (or seen the effects on their friends) how people behave and communicate in the Western Europe. Majority of people have got more friendly, polite and positive about the future.

Citizen of a neighbour of "former Baltic USSR republic" here. We also gained so much from EU membership that it's hard to describe in full. But it's also hard to notice how every single piece of existing infrastructure was improved with EU money, and many new things were built - roads, transportation, as well as playgrounds and football fields.

Yes, we have a lot of complainers here, but they mostly blame EU for either what particular neighbour countries did to us before we were even a member state, or they blame EU for whatever anti-EU crap some British newspapers produces this month (Some newspapers in UK don't like EU, they write nonsense about legislations like the one with juices or water, the news spreads and people here believe it. Seen this many times).

TL;DR: this side of the world, joining EU is a Good Thing for the people.

EDIT: a reply made me realize that I'm not sure if it was The Guardian or another British paper that spins anti-EU nonsense, so I removed the name.

> whatever anti-EU crap The Guardian produces this month (Some newspapers in UK don't like EU, they write nonsense about legislation...

The point is a good one, but you may be confusing the Guardian with e.g. the Daily Mail or the Telegraph, both right-wing anti-EU papers. The Guardian is centre-left, and neutral/pro-EU.

Updated. I'm not 100% sure now if what I read was in The Guardian or another British paper; I tend to confuse them sometimes. I stand by the rest of my comment though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvia#Ethnic_groups is closest to the demographic graph of Latvia, for example. It stopped to grow right after Russian occupation ended.

Take a closer look to the conditions in which most people live from where you have come. Or at their prospects in life. Or prospects of economy. I think that will change your opinion slightly.

Russians moving into the country during Soviet rule and moving out after it seem to explain the graph pretty well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Russians :

The number of Russians in Latvia increased significantly during the Soviet occupation of Latvia when the size of the community grew from 10.5% of the total population in 1935 (206,499) to 34.0% in 1989 (905,515). It started to decrease in size again after Latvia re-gained independence in 1991 falling to 26.9% (557,119) in 2011.

No, it doesn't fully explain changes. Numbers don't match.

Take a look at another statistics - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Latvia#Vital_st...

Number of births per 1000 had fallen right after end of "Russian occupation" and never ever regained 14.2 right before Latvian independence.

The graph on the same page shows that there is no collapse in the amount of ethnic Latvians in Latvia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ethnic_groups_in_Latvia.pn...

Your point being that fertile people are happy people?

Directly answering your question - No.

There's a point of time where Latvia went EU route, namely 1995. Nothing changed at that time. The trend started in 1991 (when USSR was split) continued until not very far past. The most important consequence of that trend is low fertility.

I also would like to comment on your question. From what I saw in my life, happy people are fertile people. The people who feels support from all directions are fertile people. And also happy ones.

Do you honestly believe in what you are implying? Just because population grew - therefore people were happy in USSR? I was born in Lithuania, a country which was occupied at that time and even though I don't remember much there's lots of people to tell the story. A story no one in their right mind would chose to live in. Stop thinking you know anything about how we live and what we want because you're just being an ignorant idiot.

Russian population also stopped growing after USSR collapsed.

Half the Latvia left to UK. Others to follow.

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