Sunday, 9 January 2000
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Link, News, Pictures and Lat Chat for Sunday, January 9th
Date:
1/9/00
File: D:\_WWWLA~1.COM\NOV92\PICTS\R02-27~1.JPG (75787 bytes)
DL
Time (32000 bps): < 1 minute
It's been a busy week for us (including a 25th wedding anniversary to
attend yesterday)—our apologies for getting the mailer out under the
wire!
Lat Chat will happen as usual... starting 9:00/9:30 Eastern
Time, follow this link on AOL: Town
Square - Latvian chat
This week's link,
from Gunars (Zulis@aol.com) is about Baltic coins.
In the news,
- art nouveau architecture is the best there is (!)
- Prosecutor General resigns
- Suspected war criminal Konrad Kalejs continues to dominate the news, witness' account featured
- Russian lawmaker urges U.S. to abandon Chechnya criticism, adds that if the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia fulfill their goal of joining NATO, "it would precipitate a major crisis" in U.S.-Russian relations
In sports,
- There are five Latvian (or Latvia-born) players on this year's National Hockey League rosters
- The English governmnet turns down working papers for one of Skonto's players to play in England
Finally, this week's picture, in keeping with last week's "twilight
theme," is the Pulvertornis in Riga, taken on Peters'
first trip in November 1992.
(We understand that some folks have
trouble reading "progressively encoded" JPGs--this week's picture is saved in
standard JPG format. Please let us know of any other issues or problems reading
the mailer, especially non-AOL users.)
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A site maintained by a very knowledgable coin-collector from Liepaja. This site is equally fascinating for coin collectors and baltic historians—coins are his vehicle to the past. —Gunars
Coins and Paper Money of Baltic Countries | |
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/5539/coins.html |
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Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.
RIGA'S REWARD: When it comes to art
nouveau, Latvia is the place to go
By
STEVEN C. JOHNSON
Associated Press
Writer
RIGA, Latvia
(AP) —When Janis Krastins lectures his students on
Greco-Roman palaces or baroque churches, he turns to photographs and
textbooks.
When he talks about art
nouveau, he just has them step outside.
"In Brussels, you have to walk for blocks
and blocks to find one example of art nouveau," says the professor at Riga
Technical University, referring to Belgium's graceful capital, which also is
known for the style.
"Here, you just
look up. They are on every corner," Krastins adds, pointing for emphasis at a
grid of downtown Riga blanketed with red dots, each representing the twisted
curves and soft colors of an art nouveau building.
The architecture style developed in
Germany, where it is called Jugendstil, and left its mark on cities from Paris
to St. Petersburg. Buildings are characterized by their ornamentation: floral
patterns, mythical figures, painting, human faces and, as Krastins put it in
one of his books, their "whiplash curves."
Riga had the good fortune to have a
building boom at the turn of the last century, when the style was fashionable.
Its Baltic Sea port was one of the most important in the Russian empire. The
population grew from 270,000 in 1898 to more than 500,000 on the eve of World
War I.
Since regaining independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991, the country has struggled to restore its
architectural treasures to their former glory. More than 40 percent of the
buildings in the capital are art nouveau, part of the reason the city was
listed in 1997 as a UNESCO world heritage site.
"Visually, this is where it's at," says
Martins Ritins, head chef at Vincents, a restaurant nestled in the heart of
Riga's finest art nouveau district.
Around the corner is Alberta Street, a
must-see for tourists and residents alike for its exquisite buildings featuring
elegant balconies, sweeping bay windows and decorative figures.
"I don't know one foreigner who doesn't
think that street is one of the most interesting streets in all of Europe,"
says Karlis Cerbulis, director of Domuss, a developer and property management
firm in Riga.
Since 1996, Domuss has
invested $40 million in commercial and residential real estate. Their renovated
condominiums can sell for as much as $340,000. Foreign businessmen are the
target market. In a country where the average monthly wage is $200, prices are
far out of reach for most Latvians.
Buildings have been converted into
restaurants and shops, apartments and condominiums. Many more are still in the
hands of individuals who acquired them according to post-independence laws that
returned property nationalized by the Communists to their pre-1940s owners.
Most of these remain run-down, even on
Alberta Street, where chic apartments with stoic stone sphinxes guarding the
door stand alongside others with cracked facades and chipping paint.
Their owners can't afford the badly needed
renovations. Some are tempted to sell, but feel obliged to adhere to the wishes
of dying relatives who wanted the property to remain in the family.
"It's not a typical real estate market,"
says Edgars Sins, director of the Latio real estate company. "To a lot of
people, buildings are not just bricks, glass and steel. They are memories,
passed down from an older generation."
The jewel in Alberta Street's crown is one
fully renovated apartment house in the middle of a long row of dilapidated
buildings. It suffers from an additional indignity: Years after its
restoration, "to let" signs still hang in the windows.
"In Soviet times, things cost almost
nothing," Krastins says. "But with rent so high, few can afford these luxuries
now. It will take time."
—————
IF YOU GO: For
more information call the Riga Tourist Information Bureau at (371) 7221-731 or
(371) 7207-800. Fax: (371) 7227-680. The Web site of the Latvian national
tourist agency is www.latviatravel.com.
Copyright 2000
Reuters Ltd.
RIGA, Jan 3
(Reuters) —Latvian Prosecutor General Janis Skrastinsh,
recently criticised by MPs who claim he mishandled the investigation of an
alleged paedophile ring, resigned on Monday, the supreme court said.
"Prosecutor General Janis Skrastinsh has
submitted his resignation to both the Supreme Court and the parliament, without
giving additional explanation," Supreme Court spokesman Leonards Pavils told
Reuters.
"It is difficult to say
whether this step is linked to a recent campaign by a group of MPs to have
Skrastinsh replaced," he added.
The
Supreme Court had earlier turned down a petition by a group of 52 of
parliament's 100 members calling for Skrastinsh to be replaced after his
investigation into allegations of a widespread paedophile ring allegedly
involving leading officials and businessmen produced no results.
The MPs said last month Skrastinsh was late
in reporting to a special parliamentary commission looking into the paedophile
case and that he had not made full use of evidence to detain leading suspects
in the case.
The Supreme Court now has
three months to nominate a new candidate for the post, the spokesman said.
Skrastinsh is expected to continue in his post until then.
Copyright 2000
Reuters Ltd.
By Megan Goldin
JERUSALEM (Reuters)
—Suspected war criminal Konrad Kalejs has been running for much of his
life. Among his pursuers is an elderly Holocaust survivor who lives in a modest
flat in Israel surrounded by faded photographs and bitter memories.
Zelda Chait, 79, fears that Kalejs, who is
expected to find shelter in Australia now that Britain plans to expel him, will
escape punishment for what Nazi hunters say was complicity in the Nazi killings
of thousands of Latvians, most of them Jews.
Chait's testimony once helped the United
States to expel Kalejs. The decision sent the alleged Latvian fascist police
commander roaming the world in a 15-year search for a safe haven.
Chait said Monday Kalejs should stand
trial, regardless of his 86 years.
"I
think if a person has killed so many people, and he was involved in all the
actions (massacres), he should not be left in peace," she told Reuters. "He
should die in jail."
Kalejs has most
recently been living in an old age home in Britain where the British Home
Office Monday told him it planned to deport him.
Nazi hunters say he was an officer in the
notorious Arajs Commando, a Latvian police unit suspected of aiding wartime
Nazi occupation forces kill thousands of civilians.
As a young woman, Chait was hidden in a
house visited by Kalejs, who, she said, came to get drunk and swap stories with
fellow members of the Commando after a day of liquidating the Jews of the Riga
ghetto, including Chait's own family.
ESCAPE FROM GHETTO
With her blond coloring and fluent Latvian,
few suspected Chait was a Jew.
She
escaped from the ghetto shortly before the Nazis and their Latvian
collaborators began to clear it out in 1941, marching thousands of Jews into
the forests and shooting them.
Chait
was hidden by an old friend who became her first husband, Yanis Vabulis. His
house was a frequent meeting place for his old school friend Kalejs and
Kalejs's Arajs comrades.
"I was in a
separate room. I was in hiding. I have never seen him (Kalejs), but I heard him
and the others who took part boast about their 'heroic' deeds," she said.
"I was terribly scared. There was no chance
for him to open the door—it was locked—but I thought (Kalejs) would
become suspicious. I was more afraid about him than the others."
She said Vabulis once showed her a
photograph of Kalejs: "He was very handsome."
About 20 years ago, after moving to Israel,
Chait began looking for Kalejs, eventually tracing him to the United States.
"I knew who that man was. I knew he
was a war criminal and I heard that he was alive," she said.
Her testimony helped convince the U.S.
Justice Department to deport Kalejs to Canada, which later banished him to
Australia.
He then left of his own will
for Britain, which Monday decided to deport him back to Australia for "the
public good."
Australia has already
decided not to put Kalejs on trial.
"Australia's really the safest place for
him," said Nazi hunter Ephraim Zuroff, who has been urging the Australian
government for years to reopen its war crimes unit and prosecute dozens of
former Nazi war criminals he says are hiding there.
Copyright 2000 The
Associated Press.
WASHINGTON
(AP) —The United States should abandon all public criticism
of the Russian war against separatist rebels in Chechnya and instead use
private channels to air its concerns, a Russian lawmaker said Friday.
Alexei Arbatov, a member of the liberal
Yabloko Party, said the more Russia is pressured by the Clinton administration
to negotiate a political settlement, the less likely Moscow is to follow
Washington's advice.
Arbatov, whose
party won just under 6 percent of the vote in recent parliamentary elections,
spoke to a gathering sponsored by the Atlantic Council, a pro-NATO group.
Almost daily for the past few months, the
Clinton administration has decried the heavy loss of civilian life resulting
from Russian offensives in Chechnya and has been urging a negotiated
settlement.
Arbatov suggested that the
United States and other NATO countries lack the moral authority to criticize
Russian military tactics in Chechnya, saying NATO's action in Kosovo was
similar to what Russian is doing in Chechnya.
If NATO assumed a self-proclaimed right to
intervene in an internal conflict in Yugoslavia, Russia has "all the more right
to use force in its domestic affairs," Arbatov said.
Arbatov, whose own party favors a
negotiated settlement, said a U.S. shift to quiet diplomacy is just one of
several ways the Clinton administration could improve ties with Moscow.
He said the administration also should
start taking Russian views more into consideration on nuclear arms reduction
issues and on U.S. proposals for modifying the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty. The administration is weighing the possibility of a modification
because of concern over a missile attack by Iraq or other adversary states.
Russia insists that any changes in the treaty would be destabilizing.
Arbatov cautioned that if the two countries
diverge too far on security issues, "Russia will find the resources to
strengthen its strategic position."
On
another sensitive issue, Arbatov said that if Ukraine were to follow the lead
of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic and become NATO members, Moscow would
view that as "the No. 1 threat to Russian national security." Ukraine, which
borders Russia to the west, has cooperative relations with NATO but has
disavowed any intention of joining a military alliance.
Arbatov added that if the Baltic states
of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia fulfill their goal of joining NATO, "it would
precipitate a major crisis" in U.S.-Russian relations.
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Copyright 2000
The Associated Press.
NHL
Rosters (excerpted)
Nashville
Predators
3 Skrastins, Karlis
D 6-1 196 07-09-1974 Riga, Latvia
8 Ozolinsh, Sandis D 6-3 205 08-03-1972 Riga,
Latvia
1 Skudra, Peter
G 6-1 182 04-24-1973 Riga,
Latvia
Montreal Canadiens
34 Zholtok, Sergei C 6-0 195 12-02-1972 Riga,
Latvia
Carolina Hurricanes
1 Irbe, Arturs G 5-8
175 02-02-1967 Riga, Latvia
Soccer-Southampton
to appeal after Latvian refused permit
LONDON, Dec 20
(Reuters) —English premier league Southampton said on
Thursday they would appeal against a government decision to refuse a work
permit for Latvian midfielder Imants Bleidelis.
Southampton, who signed a 3-1/2 year
contract with Bleidelis in December, have been told Latvia ranks too low in
FIFA's national rankings for a work permit to be granted.
Latvian striker Marians Pahars, who joined
Southampton in March in a one million pound ($1.61 million) deal, was also
refused a permit. It was finally granted after two appeals.
"One has to remember that Pahars' road to
England was not easy either. So it is too early to despair," Bleidelis
said.
"I hope we will score a victory
over red tape," he added.
Both players
came from Latvian champions Skonto.
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A view by twilight of Old Riga's Pulvertornis (Powder Tower), in November, 1992.