Sunday, 5 December 1999

December 5, 1999

Latvian Link
News
Sports
Picture Album

Date: 12/5/99
File: D:\+www.latvians.com\Mailer\jv-windmill.jpg (60052 bytes)
DL Time (32000 bps): < 1 minute

We know everyone is busy getting ready for the holidays, and a welcome break from all that madness can be a friendly gathering on AOL's Sunday night Latvian chat!! Invariably at least once a chat we end up talking about food (and what good Latvian doesn't love their food??); however, instead of the inevitable debate over whether or not pig jello (galerts) is a good thing, around the holidays we often share stories of our favorite family fare and there are always offers to send each other wonderful family recipes. We can personally vouch for the piparkukas recipe posted on the Latvian message boards two years ago by a regular chat member, DAAUZINS. So whether you want to talk about holiday recipes (or any other food), Balzams (sorry, but it always comes up!), Latvian cultural issues, political issues, or a host of other topics, or just drop in and watch the goings on, all are welcome! Please read on for this week's features and picture!

As always, please join us on Lat Chat, starting around 9:00-9:30pm ET, follow the following link on AOL: Town Square - Latvian chat
Ar visu labu,

Silvija Peters

Latvian Link

This is one of my favorite history sites. It features a chronology of the complicated military affairs in the Baltics from the start of the first world war up to the early years of Latvia's independence. The greatest pity is that I have not been able to find the name of the person maintaining this excellent site.-Gunars

Strelnieki 
http://home.parks.lv/gusts/strelnieki/visas.htm 

News

A busy week in the news:

In the interest of balance in editorial content, the sports section follows the news.

© 1999 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
RIGA, Nov 25 (Reuters) — Latvia's privatisation agency said on Thursday it was seeking cabinet approval for selling all or part of the state's 51 percent stake in national carrier Air Baltic, with a decision expected early next year. "The agency decided to propose to the cabinet to privatise the state capital share in Air Baltic," Talis Linkaitis, head of the agency's administrative service, told Reuters. He did not say how much of the stake could be sold.
Nordic airline SAS — a partner of Air Baltic — has a 38.16 percent stake, while Swedfund AB and the Danish Investment Fund for Central and Eastern Europe each own 5.23 percent. Air carrier Transaero holds a tiny stake.
"It's too early to talk about the sell-off rules and the size of the stake to be privatised now. At first, the cabinet has to make a conceptual decision on whether to start the sell-off of the state stake," Linkaitis said.
He said a government decision could be expected no earlier than February next year.
The agency has submitted the privatisation proposal to the Economics Ministry, which must now forward it to the cabinet.
"If the government decides to put Air Baltic up for sale, the company will have the opportunity to attract additional capital," Linkaitis added.
Air Baltic, which has a fleet of two 69-seat Avro and three 46-seat Fokker planes, has a basic capital of 23.78 million lats ($40.37 million). It has direct service to 10 destinations across Europe.
($1-.5891 Latvian Lat)

© 1999 Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved.
STOCKHOLM, Dec 1 (Reuters) — Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson said on Wednesday he expected a European Union leaders summit in Finland on December 10-12 to approve starting negotiations with Latvia about joining the EU.
"I am very optimistic...everything indicates a unanimous decision," Persson told a news conference after a meeting with Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga.
Earlier on Wednesday, Latvia's Justice Minister Valdis Birkavs said he was confident his country would be invited to start EU accession talks at the EU summit in Helsinki.
Persson said the main stumbling blocks were not the applicant countries themselves, but problems within the EU about how to incorporate and cope with 10 new countries in addition to the 15 current members.
The Swedish government has been supportive of Latvia's campaign to enter the EU and declared 2000 would be the 'year of the Baltic states'. Denmark and southern European countries have also supported Latvia's bid.
The EU stung Latvia's pride in 1997 when it left it out of its first enlargement tier which comprised five former communist countries — including fellow Baltic nation Estonia — and Cyprus. Talks with Estonia over membership began in March 1998.
The third Baltic country, Lithuania, was also omitted from the first tier and is hoping to be asked to start negotiations about EU accession at the Helsinki summit.
Low inflation and good growth in 1998 made Latvia a star performer in the EU candidates class but EU leaders still baulked at enlarging the expansion process at a 1998 Vienna summit.
A recent European Commission report was positive about Latvia's economy saying it would be ready for the single market in the medium term if reforms, restructuring and fiscal prudence continued but judicial reforms and an anti-corruption drive were also necessary.

WSJE: Latvian Researcher Restores A Huge Soviet Telescope
By Benjamin Smith
Special to The Wall Street Journal Europe

IRBENE, Latvia — Soviet scientists scattered when their government fell in 1991 and military funding dried up.
Some went west, to universities and corporations; others, it's rumored, went south, to dictators and terrorists.
But Latvian astronomer Juris Zhagars resisted the pull from other points of the compass and came here to a former outpost for 2,000 soldiers, scientists and spies, amid a vast pine forest hard by the Baltic Sea. This was, after all, the permanent home of a telescope known by the Russian nickname Zvozdochka, "Little Star."
Like other dreamers before him — Galileo, who collided with the Roman Catholic Church over his theories and Copernicus, whose beliefs brought him ridicule, too — Mr. Zhagars chose a course that would bring him closer to the stars he studies. And in selecting that path, he set himself apart from the average man.
Once one of the jewels of Soviet science, Little Star, a 600-ton precision instrument that stretches 50 meters into the Latvian sky, was nearly destroyed in the final days of the Soviet Union. It was in pathetic condition when Mr. Zhagars adopted it in 1994.
That was the year the slim, lively astronomer and his wife, Gundega, first chugged the 300 kilometers out from Riga to Irbene in the astronomer's orange Lada. What they found when they got here — besides the largest radio telescope in Northern Europe — was a virtual ghost town. The power plants and cafes were empty, ransacked by locals as soon as the soldiers departed out of a combination of anger at the Russians and desire for what they left behind. Cold and filthy white apartment buildings loomed up, inhabited by down-and-out squatters, and the only windows that weren't stolen and sold lay in pieces on the ground.
Until the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the existence of Little Star was unknown outside the Soviet intelligence community. When the Russian army began its grudging withdrawal in 1993, Latvian officials received previously secret maps of their own country. On the far western side of one of those maps, in the woods just four kilometers from the Baltic Sea, appears Irbene, deceptively labeled as "space-station mission control."
In reality, Little Star was the sharpest among a string of electronic ears designed to listen to satellite communications between the U.S. and Europe. But the telescope's designer, according to Mr. Zagars, a scientist named Boris Poperchenko, also built in a far greater capacity, giving the telescope the range and precision to focus on the radio signals from distant galaxies. "What the builder asked for, he got, and it was outrageously expensive," Mr. Zhagars says. "At the time," he adds wistfully, "it was the best antenna in the world."
In Soviet times Mr. Zhagars, too, was a member of an elite group. As a scientist whose research had military applications, he was paid to travel to the ends of the earth. He learned French during a year he spent in Antarctica; he flew four times to Mozambique; he learned to drink Bulgarian red wine and Moldavian white, the best Eastern European wines, he says. Mr. Zhagars's job was to determine the precise shape of the globe.
"To land a missile on, let us say, New York, it is important to know…" he trails off with an apologetic grin.
Now Mr. Zhagars is 50. There are no more international business junkets for Latvian scientists, and he and his wife drive from Riga every weekend and holiday to mind Little Star.
Piece by piece, they are repairing the decaying white guardhouse, turning it into their retirement home. This summer, they replaced the last of the stolen windows on the one-story building, but to a casual observer, the building still looks uninhabited. The whitewash is chipped, mice scurry in and out of a hole in the foundation, and rusty bars guard the new windows. On the inside, the Zhagarses have reclaimed a bedroom and parlor. But two rooms remain as they were when the couple arrived: dark and cold, with damp cement floors, uneven plaster walls.
Mr. Zhagars first discovered Little Star when the Latvian government asked him to review a set of the secret maps released by the withdrawing Russians. He followed rumors of a huge radio telescope out to the mysterious space-station control facility.
When he arrived at the site, Mr. Zhagars found a machine that had seen much better days. On departure, a Soviet team poured acid on the electronic motors that move the dish, and only a last-minute appeal from the Moscow Academy of Sciences prevented them from blowing up the telescope. The Latvians, with Swedish and Russian financial support, plus Mr. Zhagars's sweat equity, have succeeded in putting Little Star back into a limping operational mode.
"The big pieces are still valuable," says Dainis Dravins, a Swedish astronomer who has worked with Little Star. The outmoded electronics and computer equipment remain a major problem, he says, but things are slowly and steadily improving. Earlier this month, Mr. Zhagars supervised the timing of Little Star's first international project, helping astronomers from China to Italy measure the subtleties of the globe.
Mr. Zhagars dreams of a steady stream of such projects. "They offer the possibility of contact with state-of-the-art technologies, and with results that are important to the entire world," he says. For now, though, Mr. Zhagars's passion is just a part-time job.
The state-funded Ventspils International Radio Telescope Center pays him a small stipend for the research he performs in a shack in the shadow of the telescope. The stipend adds to the small salaries he receives from three other jobs, teaching in two departments at Latvia University and acting as curator at a museum devoted to his hero, Latvian-born grandfather of Russian rocket-science Arthur Sanders.
His four jobs net him 200 lats (351 euros) a month, substantially less than he made from one job before the fall of Communism.
"It's a little frustrating when I have to go to conferences," Mr. Zhagars says earnestly. "I have to get someone else to come out here." (The sole watchman who guards Little Star during the week has weekends off. That's when Mr. Zhagars takes on the additional roles of caretaker, tour guide, and guardian of the giant instrument.)
The waste he sees when he looks at the condition of Little Star grates on Mr. Zhagars. Governments today can pay up to $30 million to build a radio telescope, and Mr. Zhagars speaks angrily of a Latvian government that refuses to provide the $2 million — $1 million for scientific repairs and another million for infrastructure — he estimates it would take to restore the shine to Little Star.
Some of that anger is directed at Dzintars Abikis, a handsome former geography teacher who is now chairman of the Latvian parliament's Education, Science, and Culture Committee. Mr. Abikis argues that his committees priorities must lie elsewhere.
Meanwhile, on weekends in the summer and autumn, Mr. Zhagars leads students and tourists up the steep and twisting stairs to the telescope's 32-meter aluminum dish. The dish's yellow metallic paint is chipped and splattered with bird droppings. When Mr. Zhagars and his group stand inside, the dish and the sky seem to form a sphere.
There, Mr. Zhagars shifts from foot to foot like an impatient child, and explains, smiling at each visitor in turn, Little Star's plight. Often, the visitors ask impatient questions: "Why can't the telescope be renovated? Why can't visiting scientists just camp in the woods?"
Mr. Zhagars answers patiently. At the end of the tour he collects five lats for the group. At 20 groups a month, that brings in capital at a rate that will buy him a 21st-century telescope in time for the year 5000.
(END) DOW JONES NEWS 12-02-99 12:33 AM
© 1999 Dow Jones & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.

RADIO FREE EUROPE-RADIO LIBERTYMOVEMENT IN SUPPORT OF THE ARMY INVOKES NOSTALGIA FOR EMPIRE.
Communist Party leader Gennadii Zyuganov has said on several occasions that the Movement in Support of the Army is seeking to attract voters who supported Vladimir Zhirinovsky or Aleksandr Lebed in previous elections. The first paid television commercial aired by the movement targets those who regret the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The 30-second advertisement has appeared regularly on the private network TV-6 during the last week. The viewer sees the outline of Russia's borders at the high point of its empire. As dates of important battles in Russian history come up on the screen, parts of the map shaded in red represent Russia's size at that time. The shifting red area indicates that Russia was small in 1462, became significantly larger by 1533, shrank a bit in 1611, reached its largest point in 1900, became very small again in 1918 (indicating the limited territory controlled by the Bolsheviks at the beginning of the Civil War), expanded again by 1945 (to include all territory controlled by Russia in 1900 except for Poland and Finland), and finally shrank to its current size when the Soviet Union ceased to exist.
As the dates and maps are changing, a voice-over says, "The Russian state was built over five centuries. By the end of the nineteenth century the Russian empire occupied a gigantic territory. 1918 — intervention [by foreign countries supporting the Whites in the Civil War]. 1945 — the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 1991 — the disintegration of the Soviet Union. We will revive Russia. The Movement in Support of the Army and Defense Industry." At the end of the commercial, the words Movement in Support of the Army appear on the screen, and the red area representing the size of Russia keeps shifting. It finally stops moving at the shape of the Russian empire circa 1900.
Free air time slots promoting the Movement in Support of the Army do not explicitly call for retaking lost territory, but do seek to win protest votes by emphasizing the movement's implacable opposition to the current regime. Leader Viktor Ilyukhin is running for a single-member district seat and therefore cannot appear in free air time slots himself, but those speaking on his behalf remind viewers that Ilyukhin was the driving force behind the Duma's unsuccessful attempt to impeach Yeltsin. Many electoral blocs favor reducing the president's powers, but representatives of the Movement in Support of the Army have advocated eliminating the post of the presidency in various debates and campaign videos. During a 29 November debate on ORT, the representative of Ilyukhin's movement proudly described it as "the most radical" group running for the Duma.
In campaign videos and televised debates, candidates representing the Movement in Support of the Army have rarely brought up the "ethnic Russian question," about which the movement's leaders have made controversial remarks in the past (see "RFE/RL Russian Election Report," 12 November 1999). However, a campaign booklet does defend the use of the word "kike" by Communist Party member Albert Makashov, the movement's number two candidate. It denies that Makashov wants to "destroy all Jews" and quotes him as explaining that "Kike is not a nationality — kike is a profession. Those who read Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Shevchenko know of no other word to designate a destroyer, a bloodsucker who fattens himself on the misfortunes of other people." LB © 1999 RFE-RL

Sports

England faced the Latvian basketball team with some trepidation. (Eventually, they did upset Latvia, 97-90 in the European Championships.) And in tennis, a Latvian is ranked #3 in the world in women's doubles.

© 1999 PA News.
November 30, 1999
By Jeff Taylor, PA Sport

England must triumph in one of the hotbeds of Eastern European basketball tomorrow in order to keep pace for Istanbul 2001.
The British side upset Slovakia in Bratislava on Saturday but are still on the back foot in European Championship qualifying after dropping points at home against Switzerland.
And the atmosphere in Riga, Latvia, a country which breeded talent for the formidable former Soviet Union teams, is sure to be intimidating.
"It is a very difficult place to go, without question," said England coach Laszlo Nemeth. "But if we aspire to have success, we must learn to cope and win in places like this."
Latvia have enjoyed the kind of prosperity in their history that England have only dreamed about.
Valvis Valters, whose 18-year-old son Kristaps is now a guard with the Latvian team, was the most valuable player of the USSR team which beat Yugoslavia 84-67 in the European Championship title game in 1981 in Prague.
While they have not been a European power since the break-up of the Soviet Union, Latvia have wreaked havoc against a lot of countries.
The Baltic country crushed Nemeth's men in the 1997 European Championship semi-finals, winning 94-67 in Riga and 76-66 in Leicester.
Latvia also upset Italy, the eventual 1999 European Champions, 64-62 in last year's semi-final round.
And after a narrow 72-68 home defeat by Hungary last Wednesday, Armands Kraulins' men rebounded with a 91-76 destruction of Switzerland in Nyon on Saturday.
Latvia's key ingredient has always been outside shooting. In the triumph over England at Granby Halls they made nine of 17 from behind the arc. They also made seven threes against Italy and scorched the Swiss with nine threes.
"We have to stop them from shooting open jump shots," said England captain Steve Bucknall. "It's that simple. If we can do that, we can be successful."
England have had to endure some unsportsmanlike tactics in the build-up to the game.
Among the gamesmanship Riga airport police confiscated a video of Latvia's game against Hungary that was bound for Nemeth and the Latvian Basketball Association has not been co-operative in terms of providing England training facilities.
"They have really put us under pressure," Nemeth said.
"After we finally found a place to practice they suddenly shut the lights off in the middle of training. I didn't think it would go so far and wide, but I definitely think they're doing it on purpose."
Latvian threats on the court include 6ft 3in point guard Raimonds Miglinieks, whose club side Anwil of Poland are top of their group in the Korac Cup.
Then there are Aigars Vitols, 6ft 3in shooting guard, and 6ft 4in veteran Ainars Bagatsius, who each scored 20 points against the Swiss.
Nemeth has pencilled in Newcastle centre Ian Whyte, the most consistent performer in England's last five games, and rookie Kojo Bonsu for the starting line-up along with Bucknall, point guard Silas Cheung and Andy Gardiner.

© 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
December 1
Final [excerpt of Women's Doubles Rankings]

  1. Anna Kournikova, Russia, 3119 points
  2. Martina Hingis, Switzerland, 3106 points
  3. Larisa Neiland, Latvia, 2997 points

Picture Album

This week's picture is a change from our usual photos. A couple of weekends ago was "Miroso Pieminas Diena" here in New York, the day we get together to remember our dear departed. This week's picture is a small painting Peters' father whipped up on request for him, of a Latvian windmill. (Peters' father, who passed away in 1962, was a graduate of the Latvian Art Academy and member of its student fratenrity, Dzintarzeme.) Peters has had this painting with him ever since.

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