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endlessmonotony posted:Are you SURE Mongolia isn't in Eastern Europe? In the same vein, Portugal being honorary Eastern Europe due to various socioeconomic metrics is a Reddit meme I've noticed. I'll reserve judgement on whether it's true until I get a chance to visit.
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Feb 14, 2022 20:33
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Speaking of constitutions, there is/was a fair amount of very tedious drama around the Latvian constitution and continuous attempts by nationalists and conservatives to constitutionally ban legal recognition of same sex unions of any kind. Currently it's based on an article amended in 2006 that defines marriage as strictly heterosexual and a constitutional preamble from 2014 which attempts to codify the weird mismash of beliefs that some folks unironically call dzīvesziņa (life wisdom, but a quick search suggests "historical life experiences and moral convictions" as an academical take on the term). I'm not smart enough to criticise the preamble competently, but it's a fairly transparent attempt to codify the ideas that Latvian and Livonian are the majority cultures (I'd prefer to leave the exact interpretation to smarter people) and that the state ideology should be drawing on an interpretation of Christianity with Latvian characteristics. Encouragingly, a recent petition to demand further constitutional amendments to more explicitlyk reject same-sex unions has been stuck at 20k out of 155k needed signatures for months now and a constitutional court ruling has ordered the legislature to figure out recognition of same-sex unions. Which may actually happen. Edit: I forgot that two prior petitions for recognition of same-sex unions were rejected by the parliamentary committee. So this adds a layer of irony. a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 18:56 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 18:49
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Yeah, like half of our ruling coalition, with addition support in the opposition. It’s completely incoherent xenophobia, which is why the political support is clustered around populist and right-wing parties, which care about bigot vote. Thanks for that, that was a succinct way of putting it. I'd inevitably have been more diplomatic myself I think tikumība is a fairly easy term semantically though. Virtue, in the chastity sense of the word, is a good match. Dzīvesziņa, on the other hand, is a gently caress. Fact of questionable funniness: Older, like interwar and Soviet translations of detective novels/general fiction would sometimes translate "vice squad" or "vice patrol" to "tikumības policija" which then turns into "chastity police".
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Feb 16, 2022 21:34
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cinci zoo sniper posted:I guess you can translate the word, but conveying what it means in legal sense in Latvian law is something entirely else. I've tried researching that out of boredom, and very quickly ended up with a few 100+ page doctoral dissertations focused on the meaning of tikumība. Ok, I don't have the background to evaluate that. I was considering the semantic meaning only. cinci zoo sniper posted:As for dzīvesziņa, it's just yet another Levits's invention. It's a bit of a pattern with his writing, to come up with plausibly Latvian [compound] words that will give pause even to a majority of native speakers. He's a German taught legal scholar, his wordcompoundingwillingnessheit makes sense from that point of view. I'd disagree about the word being his invention though. I'm fairly certain/have foggy memories of it being a common term in the 80s-90s folklore circles. Life wisdom encoded in songs and tradition, the like.
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Feb 16, 2022 21:48
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
Yes, that was the intent all along, nobody was attempting to hide it as far as I recall. I've heard, but cannot verify, that the outcomes have been predictable - worse sex ed, more abortions and STIs. But kids were saved from learning about gays.
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Feb 16, 2022 23:26
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Someone brought this up in a derail in the Ukraine thread, but it got drowned out. I found it interesting though. Private Speech posted:Eh the gender roles thing is complicated; on the one hand there's definitely cultural expectations of submissive attitudes from women, but in terms of participation in the workforce etc. the former communist bloc have been more progressive than the west. If anything it feels more like there hasn't been much progress in the last 30 years compared to the west. steinrokkan posted:It didn't happen in the 90s out of thin air, it happened on the back of at least 30 years of Increasingly pervasive campaigning finally effecting a change. Which represents the very visible 20 years of cultural lag in post-socialist countries. Also the East was definitely not better for women's rights in any way, except some perfunctory political symbolism with no relations to substance, it was very much "be thankful we say we respect you, now shut up and get in line". Meanwhile, again, in the West civic society worked on changing attitudes which eventually bore fruit, something that also has to be done from ground up in the East Private Speech posted:There's quite a famous gender studies book which came out recently called "Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism - And Other Arguments for Economic Independence" which argues the opposite, at least as far as women's rights go. I'm male, not particularly young, and certainly out of my depth when speaking about gender issues, but the name of book caught my eye and I looked up an interview with the author: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/12/12/18125659/women-sex-socialism-feminism-kristen-ghodsee The interview addresses the elephant in the room - specifically the reality that women were expected to both work and carry out unpaid domestic labour - a couple of times, so that's good, but I'm a bit baffled that the idea got legs to begin with. Anyway. If I ever get the time and ability to focus back, I'd like to do get around to tracking down the early books of the first Latvian sexologist. I found a few articles of his in a few glasnost era magazines when periodika.lv opened up for public access during the pandemic and based on that I imagine that they must be wonderfully unhinged, but also very interesting.
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Feb 17, 2022 12:48
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Way to leave me out. That was semi-intentional, I wanted to add an anecdote/observation in an edit and changed my mind later on. Too long didn't write was that in my experience Baltic and Polish women who emigrate abroad often don't realise just how amazing their skillsets and experience often are. Something something educational system cultivated impostor syndrome and something something business culture of creeping responsibility without adjusting pay or recognition. Somaen posted:Speaking for the Baltics, the LGB couples that I know visiting here don't show affection in public, you will get stared at and possibly yelled at by god-fearing middle aged women or macho thugs. There is still a way to go as a society and just learning to mind your own business. In 2010 during our first pride parade march the marchers were fenced off and protected by hundreds of policemen against a counter-protest of thousands of neonazis and... more archaic layers of society, can't choose a word here. Right now we have them every year (instead of once per capital city iirc) and they're very fun and safe, with tiny counter-protests of total harmless freaks Unfortunate, but true. https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/crime/police-find-no-criminal-offense-in-alleged-homophobic-assault-last-year.a406049/
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Feb 18, 2022 16:13
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mobby_6kl posted:Happy Red Army day everyone! Culture wars remark: There's a sporadically emerging minor social media debate in Latvia every year whether or not 23.02 should be recognized and celebrated as a men's counterpart to the International Women's day, because allegedly, some people still acknowledge it and others find it offensive, in ways that approach stdh.txt. It's usually short lived and repetitive, but intense enough. There are usual talking points about the propriety of some people treating Red Army day as a men's counterpart to 8th of March, whether or not Father's day is a good substitute, whether 8th of March should be abolished due to it's socialist origins, whether men even need or deserve their own day, whether or not compulsory military service turns boys into men, etc, etc, etc. edit: weren't you the goon who had to fly to Ukraine this week? how did that go if at all?
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Feb 23, 2022 15:44
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Didn't see this bit of news mentioned elsewhere, but this is an excellent example of why both Latvia and Estonia (and EU in general) should have Russian speaking public media channels - broadcast, print and internet - that serves quality content. https://twitter.com/SofiOksanen/status/1496949351863705600
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Feb 25, 2022 12:48
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Atzīmēšos tikai tāpēc, lai būtu ierakstījis latviski. Edit: Hospitāļu iela and Ansamblis Manta ir ok. Neko citu diemžēl nav sanācis pamanīt. Incidentally, this is an election year in Latvia and, while it is too early to tell, it seems that the war will make the results much more interesting. Edit: Specifically, Šlesers and Gobzems have already received a lot of backlash. a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Feb 25, 2022 |
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Feb 25, 2022 23:15
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There is a 100% chance of it being the main ideological battleground of this year's Latvian parliament elections. Which way it will shake out really depends on how the war goes.
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Feb 27, 2022 13:23
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Latvia/Baltics chat - are the Soviet-brained boomers running the banks where you at as well? I live next to a shop with 3 ATMs and only Swedbank had bills above €10, and they had drawdown limits of €250-350 (my card and checking account are above that, don’t worry). I had to take out €780 today, ended up getting 5x50 and 53x10 and couldn’t close my wallet. Can't confirm bank runs, I live abroad, but I wouldn't be surprised. There have been social media rumour fueled bank runs in the past, around 2012-2014ish especially. Re: corruption in Latvia. It's still very much present on graft/spending/inflated tender/kickback/nepotism/procurement level and endemic in municipal spending in a slow burning fire sort of way. The judiciary in lower level courts also has a reputation for being approachable for that sort of thing as well, in an "ask around to get the right lawyer for that sort of thing" way. Smaller scale omnipresent stuff like having to bribe doctors, traffic police, driving test examiners, etc, had pretty much disappeared by 2012 *in my experience*. Having to slip an envelope to get a building or renovation permit is not really expected either, as far as I can tell from social media discussions about house building and renovations.
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Mar 1, 2022 16:14
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Why do you need cash that often anyway. The salt thing is lol. I wonder if matches, laundry soap and lightbulbs are also flying off the shelves. Toilet rolls and buckwheat were so 2020.
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Mar 3, 2022 16:09
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So, Riga did a thing and renamed the stretch of the street where the Russian embassy to Ukrainian Independence street. I also heard that Anna Politkovskaya street was suggested somewhere. https://twitter.com/ltvzinas/status/1499737566781841413 edit: weird/lovely Twitter take I saw today is that some people hope that Masha and the Bear get taken off air. the original take was joking, the replies weren't a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 15:46 on Mar 4, 2022 |
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Mar 4, 2022 14:37
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quarantinethepast posted:I get the impression that in Eastern Europe, classical music is still quite popular, moreso than in the rest of Europe/the Americas. Are there living composers that create their own modern compositions today as well, or is mostly just still playing the great masters Tchaikovsky, Beethoven etc.? Framing the question a different way, does Eastern Europe have its own Philip Glass or Max Richter? It's a field I know less than nothing about, but Pēteris Vasks comes to mind as someone who is still alive.
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Mar 5, 2022 09:34
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I think the only halfway visible Latvian sci-fi writer is a finance bro who runs a 2nd pillar pension fund and promotes financial literacy. No political affiliation, afaik. Politically active writers are generally not into speculative fiction over here.
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Mar 9, 2022 15:01
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Goddammit, I was about to go to bed. I make this one at least once per month: https://natashaskitchen.com/buckwheat-and-beef-pilaf-plov/ It's a plov, but made from buckwheat. Roasting the buckwheat first is key, as is cumin. Edit: I have also substituted pork for beef several times and may even prefer it that way.
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Mar 11, 2022 00:30
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Sir Bobert Fishbone posted:I hate that my Latvian ID documents all say Endrū lol Shouldn't it be Endrjū? Ay least that's how it was spelled in the English translations I read growing up. Latvianisation of names is weird and cringey, but I'm too old and too used to it to be bothered by it. VVC on the other hand, can go and piss in the wind. At least they tried to censor the Russian warship phrase as too vulgar for print, so they got a bit of backlash just now.
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Mar 12, 2022 09:50
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I'm not sure how representative Twitter is, but there's definitely seems that there's a lot of pro-Polish/PiS messaging going out, especially in the context of the EU vote to sanction Poland on rule-of-law matters. In a "how dare they sanction Poland in times like these" way.
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Mar 12, 2022 11:29
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The Serbian thing is also a rebuke to Germany, who, in rather tone deaf fashion, timed their support for Serbian accession right after ruling out an accelerated accession process for Ukraine. Off the top of my head, of course. Edit: humorously, my floor has three flats, occupied by Latvians, a Serb and an Ukrainian couple respectively.
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Mar 13, 2022 20:40
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bad_fmr posted:Im really curious why Mauno Koivisto of all people got into that list. Okay, yes, this is infuriating. I was more than a decade out of high school when I realized that Charlemagne is actually the same guy as Kārlis Lielais. And the names of French kings were all over the place depending on when exactly they were translated. Luī, Luijs, Ludviķis. bad_fmr posted:Interesting. Does the fact that his middle name is Henrik change the way it is written, if all the words have to end in vowel sound? Nah. There are 6 possible endings, 3 for masculine and 3 for feminine, with known exceptions for loanwords and some person and place names. Which is weird again, because, for instance, Turku will not be Latvianised, but Malmo will become Malme. So, Koistinen would become Koistinens or Koistinena, depending on the gender of the person, whereas Kaurismäki will change to Kaurismeki, with the ending unchanged and applicable to any gender for reasons unclear, yet somehow intuitive.
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Mar 14, 2022 11:29
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A weird thing Lithuanians do with women's last names is that the ending depends on the marital status of the woman. Surnames of married women invariably end with -ienė while unmarried women's names can end with either -aitė, -ytė, -utė, and -iūtė. I'm not knowledgeable enough to explain whether, why or how it relates to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouba/kiki_effect, but it seems to do in some way.
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Mar 14, 2022 11:49
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Seems to have been made optional in 2003. According to Wikipedia at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_name#Feminine_forms
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Mar 14, 2022 12:11
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That looks tasty enough, in the Latvian "perfectly normal" meaning of the term. I think adding cumin might have improved the score you gave it by half a point or so. I also usually skip halving a head of garlic and instead just put 4-5 peeled cloves in, so that they dissolve in the plov. I am not sure where I saw this, but I think a few thread regulars (cinci zoo sniper, Somaen?) may have mentioned in the past that a part of the nominally liberal Russian opposition may oppose the Kremlin, but still see "near abroad" as part of the Russian sphere and I wonder if there's a good source on getting more insight on that. I'm asking because one of the more interesting (and divisive) public discussions taking place in Latvia right now is what to make of Russian exiles who have escaped Russia since the beginning of the war, but are not outspokenly pro-Ukrainian or pro-Western. Chulpan Khamatova kind of kicked off the debate by arriving in Riga, but it's including others as well. a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 15:28
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I'm not sure, that's the thing. I'm sort of trapped by understanding Russian just about well enough to get much of the meaning and some of the nuance of what I read, but generally not being familiar with the context and background at all. So, seeing Khamatova's, as an example, position and views being debated I'm looking for something accessible and reliable to quickly read up on. Or, I guess, asking on SA for a quick tl;dr also works.
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Mar 22, 2022 10:15
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I fell for the post from the Splendid Palace cinema which claimed that following guidance from VVC on use of foreign languages, the cinema will be renamed to Krāšņā Kinopils. Ngl, felt pretty righteously furious there for ten seconds until I remembered what day this is.
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Apr 1, 2022 18:40
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Charlz Guybon posted:What does that mean? Splendid Palace is an arthouse cinema in Riga and a well liked institution of the city. The site, much lf building, some of the interior and, crucially, the name dates back to the interwar period. VVC is the Latvian language bureau who are taking their mandate of preserving the language a bit too seriously, to the point that cinci zoo sniper made, namely that they've taken a side in the culture wars. Due to language matters being very sensitive in Latvia, they wield a disproportionate amount of administrative and legal power. They're not a language police per se, but they can and do complicate compliance for businesses. The cinema made an April's Fools joke by announcing they'd change their name to remain compliant with VVCs latest guidelines that restrict the use of foreign languages in cultural entity names. It was absurd, but a bit too close for comfort.
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Apr 2, 2022 18:20
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I'm almost certainly talking entirely out of my rear end here, but my superficial impression is that the situation wrt regulation could be compared to the heavy handed protection of French in Quebec, at least from a mandate and purpose of the institution point of view. Culture warring it up by publishing a authoritative opinion that the historical translation of "Negro" should not be considered a slur, as if there had been no changes in its semantic meaning in the past century, doesn't help matters.
a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Apr 2, 2022 |
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Apr 2, 2022 18:50
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Nope, closest that we have is the official name day calendar. If your name is on the list, it gets a calendar day for a minor celebration most people stop bothering with in their mid 20s. That's all. Ironically, it's VVC who controls that too.
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Apr 2, 2022 18:57
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It's just a drink. Not unlike Gammel Dansk or Fernet Branca, it has its use cases.cinci zoo sniper posted:
The company I work for had a very boozy culture and, initially, very few Latvians. Somehow that led to balsam becoming a hazing drink for new hires Friday afterwork. Until HR put a stop to that. Yet I've never seen namedays being more than casually acknowledged. a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Apr 2, 2022 |
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Apr 2, 2022 20:26
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Pabriks is a Twitter boomer, but he's on the record for having tried to roll with punches at least a couple of times. My favourite tweet of his was a couple of years back when he got mad about an American pancake mix not sold in Latvia changing their packaging to be more inclusive or less racist and swore to not to buy it again. The latest spat is interesting though and could have real life implications for press freedom to the point where it would almost be worth a small effortpost which I won't make. The tldr is that the nationalists are still loving mad at Leonid Ragozin and Re:Baltica for that Azov article they collaborated on a few years back and have been trying to cancel Ragozin and R:B ever since. They've also been mad at the public broadcaster for about a decade for reasons I've honestly forgotten. LGBT propaganda? Portrayal of 2016 refugee crisis? Refusal to acknowledge glorious achievments of Vyšegrad countries? Who knows. Giving Ragozin airtime on the Russian public media channel kicked off (among the usual suspects at least) a minor witch hunt for journalists "toeing the Kremlin line". It could impact the public media, unfortunately.
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Apr 5, 2022 12:18
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alex314 posted:If I ever move from Poland one of the main criteria would be "how far away is the nearest border with Russia. Present idea is either Portugal or Canaries. Azores seem to be the best of both worlds - Portuguese and middle of the Atlantic  Seriously though, don't move to an island. I've lived on one for quite some time and it is it's own unique flavour of suck. If I had to pick an EE location to move to (other than Latvia), it'd be Czechia or Slovakia, but it's based mostly on superficial impressions.
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Apr 6, 2022 15:37
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I've had this image stored in an image folder for the last decade or so. That's about the only thing I know about the cultural and linguistic differences that there are. 
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Apr 8, 2022 09:33
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Fairly grim article out of Latvia that points out that rape victims fleeing from Ukraine may experience difficulties accessing abortions in Poland and that NGOs are asking the Polish gov to make exceptions. Latvia is working to make the procedure easier to access and to allow the costs to cover by the state. There have been no inquiries locally, but there has been an inquiry on behalf of a woman located in Poland. https://www.lsm.lv/raksts/zinas/arz...&utm_medium=soc
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Apr 8, 2022 12:28
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Zudgemud posted:Since Latvia is on the lower end of the obesity list I can only assume that a pure alcohol diet should be recommended to the whole of the americas? There was an old Soviet joke, that went like this: - Dad, dad, they said on the radio that vodka is going to be more expensive this year! Does that mean you will be drinking less now?! - No honey, it means you and mom will be eating less now. In all honesty, I don't think there's a correlation though. Edit: To add content, the Latvian police has initiated 20 criminal cases to date that concern assault, harassment or property damage against Ukrainians. Cars with Ukrainian plates getting vandalised, that sort of thing. a podcast for cats fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 17:50
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alex314 posted:Also how strict were the "no alcohol sales after x hour". Ngl, it cannot be stressed enough just how much safer streets / parks became, especially after dark after the law was introduced in the early 2000s.
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Apr 12, 2022 14:54
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There is a ferry from Liepāja to Travemunde too, fwiw.
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Apr 14, 2022 13:01
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Edit is not quote.
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Apr 14, 2022 13:10
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I'm going to Riga in July, will check it out. In the meantime, the Latvian oddity of political alliance ZZS (agrarians + greens) has fallen apart. I'm too lazy to check, but I assume they will join a new alliance of backroom/hunter lodge deal guys
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May 6, 2022 19:28
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Going to be a fun choice then for whom to vote, between racist “progressives”, centrists subservient to the gambling lobby, and various flavours of conservatives. I must have missed the racist bit? Not ruling some gaffe, just that it's not been my impression. I'm soured on Progressives due to another reason, because of them underdelivering on traffic/walkability issues in Riga and haven't been looking very closely in recent months, despite getting a fundraising call a few days back. Anyway, cinci, how's the tension in physical spaces in the city? If you weren't on social media and didn't follow the news, would you notice anything being different?
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May 11, 2022 19:38
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