Beggars, bombers, missions, dreams, and more
Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger spent the week of September 12 in the Baltic states — or rather, in two of them, Latvia and Estonia. A piece by him appears in the current issue of National Review magazine: about the Baltics, Russia, NATO, and America, particularly in light of our presidential campaign. This journal supplements the piece, and concerns matters weighty and light. Here are links to previous parts: I, II, III, IV, V, and VI.
So, I’m having a bite to eat outside the Circle K, here in Riga. (They have seating, so you can eat what you’ve bought.) A young woman comes up to me. A beggar, and a chic one. Dyed blonde hair, cool sunglasses, punkish haircut, the works. She brandishes some kind of handicapped card. Says she has five people to take care of at home. Makes puppy-dog eyes. Persists.
I have a feeling she is a successful con. I meet them all over the world, including at home. It’s amazing — sort of sad — how cynical I have become about beggars over the years. I was more innocent once.
‐At a major intersection, I encounter an unexpected sight: an abortion protester. By himself. He is in what looks like an orange jumpsuit. He has placards. The main one says, “Stop Abortion.” He just stands there, unmoving, staring ahead. I give him a thumbs-up. He gives me a solemn nod. Nearby, they are setting up for some kind of concert. The PA blasts, “Ain’t no mountain high enough …”
‐I’ll tell you what is enjoyable, and illuminating: a conversation with Andrejs Pildegovics, who is Latvia’s state secretary for foreign affairs. He is terribly bright, terribly experienced, etc. He is a career-long foreign-policy analyst and diplomat. He has served as ambassador to the U.S. and elsewhere.
He was born in Vladivostok, in the Soviet Far East. I think of it for the Ford-Brezhnev summit, in 1974. Pildegovics was three years old.
His dad, a Latvian, had been sent there to teach at the Far Eastern Federal University. Pildegovics’s mother was Russian. To his dad, he spoke Latvian, and to his mom, he spoke Russian. To each other, they spoke a mixture.
Remember, there is a great deal of intermarriage here in Latvia — interethnic marriage. Officially, it’s 20 percent. “That is the highest rate of the whole EU,” says Pildegovics. Unofficially, it is closer to 30 percent.
I remark to Pildegovics, “That’s good for national survival, isn’t it?” He answers, “I think it’s a testimony to the openness and tolerance of this country. We have a long history of cohabitation. It was that way in the Balkans before 1991, but not anymore.”
That is a very, very interesting topic. But let’s move on.
Pildegovics says, “I finished secondary school in 1988. It was still difficult to go to the West. So for me, the window to the world was China and Chinese.”
He studied at the university in St. Petersburg, concentrating on Chinese language and history. He also studied at the Foreign Languages Institute in Beijing. Eventually, he spent some time at Oxford, in Green College. So, “I am a Greenie.”
‐“When I completed my education, the country was miraculously reborn.” What lucky timing, blessed timing. Pildegovics set out to serve his country diplomatically.
‐He asks me to try to imagine what it was like in Latvia 25 years ago — what it was like in Soviet Latvia. I will paraphrase what he says.
There were more than 30,000 Soviet troops in Latvia. The headquarters of the Soviet military in the Baltics were 500 meters from where we are sitting. This territory was heavily, heavily militarized. Bombers, missiles, tanks. Submarines were in the waters 10 kilometers from here. There were scores of fighter jets. And, metaphorically speaking, there was an army of Soviet apparatchiks.
“In just 25 years,” he continues, “we have turned into a fairly mainstream European state.”
It wasn’t easy, he says. It was not a given. On the contrary, it was “quite miraculous.”
‐He recounts what the Baltics suffered in World War II, under the Soviets and the Nazis and the Soviets again. And what they suffered for some 45 years thereafter. “We lost two generations behind the Iron Curtain. We were in a forced hibernation.” And they emerged from that darkness.
One thing I notice in this region: They are unusually appreciative. Appreciative of democracy, freedom, and human rights. Appreciative of Western values. They are not in the least cynical and jaded. They have not had time to become that.
‐The last Soviet troops in Latvia left in 1998, says Pildegovics. It could not have happened overnight. “They had fairly sophisticated bases here. They had an anti-missile shield.”
‐Now there are trade and tourism between Latvia and Russia. Russia accounts for 12 or 13 percent of Latvia’s overall trade. (The lion’s share of Latvia’s trade is within the EU.) To Latvia, the same number of Russian tourists come as go to Great Britain.
“Is that a lot?” I ask Pildegovics. He answers, “You can judge. We are not a prime destination for Russians, no. But the number is quite steady. You can see a lot of Russian license plates here.”
Ah, drivability — a nice factor.
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‐Obviously, Latvia desires harmonious relations with Russia, says Pildegovics. But there are differences: over Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine. “We do not accept privileged spheres of influence.” There’s that phrase again, from the Nazi-Soviet pact. “We do not recognize the dismemberment of sovereign states. We do not recognize the change of borders by force.”
‐What we are seeing from Putin, says Pildegovics, is “basically aggressive nationalism.” What we are hearing is “Soviet-style imperialist rhetoric about the special mission or right of Russia to interfere anywhere where Russian-speaking people reside.”
‐Pildegovics speaks of the referendum in Crimea — or rather, “referendum.” “It was a mockery of a referendum,” he says. “The kind of thing we saw in the Baltics in the 1940s.” This fake referendum was held under the guns of little green men on the streets — those Russian special forces, in their unmarked green uniforms.
Later, these people — the little green men — were decorated by the Russian ministry of defense.
‐Talking about NATO, Pildegovics refers to “the Three Musketeers principle”: One for all, and all for one. That is what Article 5 demands.
Latvians have fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq. They have gone even farther afield, too. Pildegovics puts it catchingly: “Can you imagine the Latvian parliament, here at the 56th parallel north, giving unanimous approval for our soldiers to go to sub-Saharan Africa to fight Boko Haram?” Latvians have been to Mali and the Central African Republic on U.N. and EU missions. They are also back in Iraq, as trainers. They remain in Afghanistan, for that matter.
“We are not shy about fighting shoulder to shoulder with Americans,” says Pildegovics. “We consider it a matter of burden-sharing.”
‐In the U.S. House, there is a Baltic Caucus. Twenty-five years ago, says Pildegovics, it had about 150 members. Now it’s down to about 60. “Why is that?” I ask. He says, “Because in good times, people don’t worry.” After Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, however, interest in the Baltics was reawakened.
That is sort of good news / bad news.
‐Like everyone else in the Baltics, Pildegovics stresses rules and norms — international rules and norms. “Territorial integrity, the inviolability of borders.” For us Americans, I think, these things are largely theoretical. For people here, they are more like life and death.
‐I look at some pictures in Pildegovics’s office. There is President George W. Bush, leading a ceremony having to do with Eastern Europe, including the Baltics. There are President and Michelle Obama, with a choir — a choir of eleven-year-old Latvians. They are in the East Room of the White House.
“I grew up 200 kilometers from Sweden,” says Pildegovics, “and I never dreamed of going there. Much less to the United States. To just show up at JFK — that is mind-blowing. My three kids think it’s nothing. They think you can just go to the United States whenever you want. I could barely even dream of going to Sweden. The Soviet Union collapsed when I was 20. It was the greatest dream in the history of dreams.”
Readers, I thank you — and I’ll see you soon, for Estonia.