Is it racist to be bothered by the idea of a Russian majority in Riga?

[Bush loves Jiang]

I have no problem whatsoever with Russians in general: It actually has nothing to do with the fact that the majority of citizens in Latvia's capital are ethnic Russian: It's WHY their ancestors came to Latvia that bothers me for much the same reason that our ancestors' treatment of Natives in Canada and the U.S.A bothers me.

[DoveTurnedHawk]

1. Aren't Both Ethnic Groups Caucasian?

If so, you wouldn't be racist, at most you'd be ethnocentrist.

DTH

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. There's a long history behind it

Riga was always a multi-ethnic city. In Czarist times, it had a large German population, as well as Russians. However, this was just the kind of melting pot that occurs in a port city.

The Czarist government banned the teaching of the Latvian language and required that all schooling should be in Russian. My grandfather, who grew up in that period, was taught to read Latvian at home, out of the family Bible. Except for the schooling requirements, however, there were no particular efforts to get ethnic Latvians to conform to Russian cultural or religious norms.

After Stalin ended Latvia's brief period of independence, he instituted a deliberate policy of moving Latvians out and Russians in (If you look at an ethnic map of the former USSR, you will see small islands of Latvians in Siberia). The Russians were of all social classes, but they acted like conquerors in that they were not required to learn Latvian, but Latvians were required to learn Russian. Traditional Latvian culture was also suppressed, except for a few safe "folk festival" versions.

Now that Latvia is independent, a lot of ethnic Latvians are thinking "payback time." I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect ethnic Russians applying for Latvian citizenship to learn the Latvian language, but they have been in Riga for two or three generations by this point, and most of them really had no choice about settling there. When Stalin asked for "volunteers," it took a brave person to refuse.

[pscot]

3. If I were Latvian

it would bother the shit out of me. In fact it bothers me wiithout being Latvian, but then I'm not all that crazy about Russians to begin with. Guess I'm just an unreconstructed old cold warrior.