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In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times
- colinbartlett 13y agoSomething something potato. There, we got that out of the way, let's move on.
- gaius 13y agoA 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.
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- nopassrecover 13y agoThe 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.
- mjn 13y agoEspecially 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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Civil_War [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_occupation_of_Greece [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Civil_War
- jol 13y agoThe 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.
- gaius 13y agoWell, 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.
- dzhiurgis 13y agoJust 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.
- gaius 13y agoThere 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.
- adrenalinup 13y agoThe 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-be-home-to-7-billion-people-where-do-you-fit-in/ http://thenextweb.com/shareables/2011/10/27/earth-will-soon-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria [3] http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/business/international/ukrainian-chocolates-caught-in-trade-war-between-europe-and-russia.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/business/international/ukr...
- olegious 13y agoMaybe 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.
- rdtsc 13y ago> 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).
- shitgoose 13y agoIn 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion_Day
- ghostdiver 13y agoGermans 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.
- shitgoose 13y agoLatvian Legion was not part of Wehrmacht, but part of SS. Big difference, refer to Nuernberg trial for details.
- daliusd 13y agoWikipedia 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.
- shitgoose 13y agoLegion 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.
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- pixelpanic 13y agoThanks 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 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-to-prosecute-Nazi-war-criminals http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/Lack-of-will-t... ?
- smcl 13y ago"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.
- netpenthe 13y agowell 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
- 001sky 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- eru 13y agoThe 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.)
- vermillion 13y agoWhat's the problem with picking the low hanging fruit first?
- eru 13y agoThe higher fruit are ripe first.
- TheSpiceIsLife 13y ago
- penetrarthur 13y agoLatvian 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.
- vermillion 13y agoThis comment should be on top, it confirmed my suspicions.
- TheSpiceIsLife 13y agoAh, so my appraisal of the situation from the image caption was entirely correct.
- ptr 13y agoWasn't Skype started by a Swedish entrepreneur? That's what I thought.
- zv 13y agoBasically advertisment to http://riga.techhub.com/ http://riga.techhub.com/
- vermillion 13y agoThis article reads like an advertisement, reminds me of this essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html