

In Latvia, young people discover new passions in bad economic times - jmacd
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/in-latvia-young-people-discover-new-passions-in-bad-economic-times/2013/07/29/ac638cac-efbf-11e2-8c36-0e868255a989_story.html

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gaius
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.

~~~
shitgoose
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion_Day)

~~~
daliusd
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.

~~~
shitgoose
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.

------
penetrarthur
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.

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

------
smcl
"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
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

~~~
001sky
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog)

~~~
eru
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.)

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

~~~
eru
The higher fruit are ripe first.

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

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zv
Basically advertisment to [http://riga.techhub.com/](http://riga.techhub.com/)

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

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

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

