Why the Latvian government is coming after the Russian language

At the age of seventy-four, Inessa Novikova, who is ethnically Russian, was told she had to learn Latvian or she’d be deported. “I felt physically ill when the policy was announced,” she tells me when we meet in an office close to Riga’s city center. “I’ve lived here peacefully for twenty years.”

There was no requirement for her to seek Latvian citizenship after the Cold War ended. Then, it was acknowledged that ethnic Russians, who make up a quarter of Latvia’s 1.8 million population, would coexist with ethnic Latvians. But when Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, this arrangement ended. If Latvia’s “non-citizens” had Russian citizenship, as Inessa did, they now had to apply for a new “EU residence” permit, which meant learning Latvian. The new rules, which were introduced in the fall of 2022, apply to everyone aged over fourteen and under seventy-five.

Alyona sat her exams and failed twice. She was instructed to leave the country by the end of the month

In 2010, when she was sixty, Inessa had applied for Russian citizenship. It only required a trip to the embassy and there were no examinations, so it was more appealing than naturalization. Like 25,000 other ethnic Russians, she hadn’t anticipated her citizenship would one day pose problems for her life in Latvia. “It was humiliating living as a non-citizen,” she says. She passed the language test last year, at a cost of $550. How did she afford it on her pension of $450 a month? “The Almighty helped, I guess,” she says. “It was unbelievably difficult.”

Alyona Egorova, sixty-nine, was not so lucky. She was born in Latvia, but took Russian citizenship the same year as Inessa, tempted by the fact she would receive her pension eight years earlier if she did so. When the new rules were announced, she submitted her old Latvian language proficiency certificate, which was issued in 1993. It was rejected. She sat her exams and failed twice. The Latvian government only allows two attempts. In November, she was instructed to leave the country by the end of the month.

Confused and frustrated, she wrote to president Edgars Rinkevics. His office informed her that “the president’s activities do not include interference in the process of granting residence permits,” and if she disagreed with decisions made by the migration office, she was welcome to appeal. So she did. The response was unequivocal. “There is no subjective factor in the assessment of literacy and the assessment cannot be adjusted.”

She showed me her letters. She’s been contacted by three different migration centers, none seemingly in communication with the others. One of the centers had called her on the day we met to offer a year’s residence for $350. “I don’t have that. I’ve sold all of my gold,” she says. She has struggled to make ends meet after spending more than $1,000 to cover tests, fees and letter correspondences. Her situation is not helped by the fact her bank account was recently blocked. I ask what awaits her next. “I’ll stay in Latvia. This is my homeland. I was born here, my children are Latvian. I’ve worked my whole life. I’ve paid my taxes.” I raise the prospect of her being arrested and deported. “Let them try,” she replies.

De-Russification — which can take the form of restoring citizenship laws, switching official languages or renaming streets — is common practice in former Soviet states. Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Latvia has taken things further, banning Russian state television, asking schools to teach only in Latvian, and toppling remaining Soviet monuments. Day-to-day life has been made tougher for ethnic Russians, and now the immigration law amendment has made staying in Latvia illegal for some. Around 16,000 Russian citizens applied for the new permit and Alyona is one of about 1,000 who failed to meet requirements. No one has yet been deported, but the interior ministry insists that forced departure orders will be issued.

Latvia’s ruling political alliance New Unity defends its policies as part of a strengthening of national security. “[Ethnic Russians] had years to learn the language,” the defense committee chairman Ainars Latkovskis tells me. “This is a matter of attitude, not of age or your education.” Shortly before president Rinkevics took office last summer, I asked him about social cohesion, and he replied that ethnic Russians are “struggling with their identities.” He finds it “a bit strange” that some never learnt Latvian.

There was a final hope that the constitution court would challenge the government. But last month it backed the amendment, agreeing that the Ukraine War had created a security risk that justified the new law. The court said that any restrictions on the rights of Russian citizens were consequences of protecting the Latvian language, which is an integral part of the democratic state. When it was pointed out that most ethnic Russians who don’t speak Latvian are retired women, the court argued that nationality “indicates a person’s loyalty to the state and confers on every citizen, irrespective of age or sex.”

It can’t be assumed that having Russian citizenship and limited proficiency in Latvian means that you support the barbaric dictator in Moscow or pose any threat to national security. But since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, such assumptions have become a basis for policymaking, irrespective of the fact that many ethnic Russians are descendants of migrants from Soviet or even tsarist times, and that until now there has been little incentive to learn Latvian.

Language isn’t the only hurdle facing some of those applying for their new permit; political beliefs — and whether they are deemed “correct” — are another. President Rinkevics was keen to share one of the few polls that compared ethnic attitudes towards the war. He pointed to a stark difference: asked in 2022 which side they supported, 83 percent of Latvian speakers supported Ukraine, compared with only 25 percent of Russian speakers. That might appear worrying, until you read that of the Russian–speaking respondents who didn’t support Ukraine, most answered “hard to say” or “neither,” leaving only 17 percent supporting Putin.

“Maybe there’s no willingness to answer this question because it’s too sensitive,” Rinkevics tells me. “There is a very complex and difficult soul-searching in that community.” That is probably true. But the political uncertainty isn’t exclusive to ethnic Russians. Recent surveys show that support for Ukraine is slowly declining across Europe. Forty-six percent of French and 52 percent of Italians are now either unsure or do not care about the outcome of the war.

Russian citizens were required to detail their property assets and work experience — and their political views

Nevertheless, along with language test results, Latvia’s Russian citizens were required to submit paperwork detailing their work experience, property assets, travel documents, bank statements — and their political views. Under an “additional questions” category, they were given the option of “yes” or “no” responses to questions such as “Do you believe that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014?,” “Do you consider Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a criminal act?,” “Have you provided any support to Ukraine or its citizens?,” “Is the dismantling of Soviet memorials in Latvia justified?”

“This questionnaire was created by the state security service, and having no political stance is deemed unacceptable,” says Elizabete Krivcova, an immigration lawyer who has helped applicants by creating instructional online videos. Russian applicants who express the “wrong” opinions — or who refuse to answer altogether — are asked to explain their views in person. So to avoid any trouble, many just answer as the state expects them to. “I’ve tried criticizing [the state’s] methods, but there is no parliamentary or judicial control over the intelligence services,” Krivcova explains.

The irony is that, historically, most Latvians are well aware of the evils of illiberalism. In Riga’s various museums, visitors are constantly reminded of the long struggle the country went through to gain its freedom. The War Museum, for example, describes Nazi Germany’s defeat as a “strange victory.” While Londoners danced in Trafalgar Square and confetti fell in Times Square, Latvia descended into decades of Soviet occupation. A new exhibition looks at the Latvians in exile, those who put faith in other countries — across western Europe, North and South America and Australia — to preserve their culture while it was repressed under communist rule.

Yet Latvia today has concluded that de-Russification is a necessity to shield its young nation from foreign influence, at the expense of people who are increasingly viewed as the enemy within. Just before I left the War Museum, I came across a whiteboard inviting visitors to describe what “freedom” means to them. One note reads: “There will never be a Russian here.”

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s UK magazine. Subscribe to the World edition here.