Sveiki, all!

It was a busy week in the news. Amid new developments, old stories, such as the Kalejs extradition, contiued. Slain heros were remembered as well, even as old enmities resurrected themselves -- as Latvians commemorated those slain by the Soviet Black Berets, Putin drew battle lines with the new U.S. administration over Baltic membership in NATO.

This week's headlines:

• Mariss Jansons Named to Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio Post
• Reuters interview-Latvia's last communist boss remains "true believer"
• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania tourism on the rise, one example is German tour operator expanding its Baltic offerings
• Today In History (January 20th) [excerpt]
• Latvia - Crackdown Commemorated
• Australian court sets Kalejs extradition hearing
• Putin Dismisses NATO Expansion

This week's link is from our story on Baltic tourism.

This week's picture is from Peters' trip to Latvia, in August 1993, of Andris Slapins' memorial in Bastejkalns Park in the heart of Riga.

Remember, mailer or not, Lat Chat spontaneously appears every Sunday on AOL starting around 9:00/9:30pm Eastern time, lasting until 11:00/11:30pm. AOL'ers can follow this link: Town Square - Latvian chat. And thanks to you participating on the Latvian message board as well: Click here: LATVIA (both on AOL only).

Ar visu labu,

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Here's a link to Baltic tourism, as featured in this week's news. (We are obliged to note that we don't have any association with them...) http://www.schniederreisen.de

Mariss Jansons Named to Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio Post

PR Newswire Sunday, January 14, 2001 3:00:00 AM
Copyright 2001 PR Newswire
Mariss Jansons Will Be the New Principal Conductor of (Bayerischer Rundfunk) as of September 2003

    MUNICH, Germany, Jan. 14 (PRNewswire) -- Lorin Maazel's successor for the post of Principal Conductor of Bavarian Radio's Symphony Orchestra is settled as of today.
    Dr. Thomas Gruber, the radio director of Bavarian Radio appeared extremely pleased about Mariss Jansons agreeing to take over the direction of the Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of Bavarian Radio as of the 2003/2004 season. Jansons, says Gruber, has the rare gift of not only being able to receive inspiration, but also to pass it on to the musicians. He can be inspired and can, thus, inspire the audience. The name Mariss Jansons stands for music with heart and soul. It should be fascinating to see how his impetus affects the repertoire.
    Mariss Jansons has already conducted Bavaria Radio's Symphony Orchestra many times, the last time being December last year at a celebrated concert during the "Kissinger Winterzauber". In September he will direct Bavaria Radio's Symphony Orchestra at the opening of the new 2001/2002 concert season.
    Mariss Jansons is considered one of the most respected conductors of his generation. He became well-known worldwide not only through his concerts and tours, but also through his numerous gramophone, radio and TV recordings. Along with his posts as Principal Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra since 1979, and the Pittsburgh Symphony since 1997, both of which he has lead to international acclaim, Mariss Jansons has also worked as Associate Principal conductor of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and as Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra since 1985.
    Mariss Jansons is the son of the famous conductor Arvid Jansons and was born in Riga in 1943. He studied violin, piano and conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which he completed with distinction, and continued his studies in 1969 in Vienna under Professor Hans Swarowsky and in Salzburg under Herbert von Karajan. In 1971 Mariss Jansons won the Herbert von Karajan competition in Berlin.
    Mariss Jansons' collaboration with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, formerly the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, started in 1973, when he was appointed Associate Conductor. In 1985 he rose to the rank of Associate Principal Conductor of the orchestra. He still holds this post today. Since his appointment to the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra Mariss Jansons has successfully directed the orchestra on many of their very successful, worldwide tours.
    The Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra has gained a reputation as one of the world's best orchestras under his leadership. Mariss Jansons and the "Oslo troupe" have been guests on joint tours at the most important centres in the music world over the last few years. They played at the Salzburg Festival, the festivals in Lucerne and Edinburgh, the BBC Proms, the Barbican Centre and the Royal Festival Hall in London as well as the Vienna Music Association, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Lincoln Centre and the Carnegie Hall in New York and the Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Over the years they have received many excellent reviews for their numerous recordings for EMI and Chandos.
    Along with his numerous fixed commitments, Mariss Jansons has again and again conducted many of the world's best orchestras, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, Bavaria Radio's Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the London Symphony, and the London Philharmonic and Philharmonia Orchestra with immense success. He is also a guest at the Salzburg Festival every year with different orchestras.
    The repertoire of his gramophone recordings for EMI and Chandos range from works by Berlioz, Dvorak, Bartok, Mahler, Prokofiev and Rachmaninov through to Ravel, Respighi, Schostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Stravinsky, Wagner and Weill. Many of the recordings have been awarded international prizes. In 1989 Mariss Jansons received the Edison Award for the recording of Schostakovich's Symphony No. 7 with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra. He received the much sought after Dutch Luister Award for the recording of the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. For Dvorak's Symphony Nr. 5 with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra he won the "Penguin Award" and for the Symphonies No. 2 und 3 by Honegger the Grand Prix de Disque.
    The future director of Bavarian Radio's Symphony Orchestra has already been honoured with awards on numerous occasions. He was chosen as "Artist of the Year 1996" by EMI Classics and received the Norwegian Anders Jahre Culture Prize. Furthermore, a special honour was bestowed on him in Norway, namely in 1995 he was awarded the "Commander with Star", the highest Order awarded to non-noble, non-Norwegian citizens, along with the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, by King Harald V.
    Photos of Mariss Jansons: Photos are available in the BR picture archive, Tel. +49-89-5900-3040, Fax +49-89-5900-3284 or BR-APIS-ONLINE 10040 as well as LEONARDO-ISDN: Tel. +49-89-5900-4597 (please address your enquiry to LEONARDO on Tel. No. +49-89-5900-2738, Gerhard Kirmair).
    /CONTACT: Bayerischer Rundfunk Press Office, +49-89-5900-2176/

INTERVIEW-Latvia's last communist boss remains "true believer"

Reuters World Report Thursday, January 18, 2001 7:24:00 AM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.
By Martins Gravitis

    RIGA, Jan 18 (Reuters) -- Ten years after a bloody crackdown by Moscow failed to stop Latvia's anti-Soviet independence bid, the Baltic state's last communist leader says he still believes it was a mistake to let the Soviet Union fall apart.
    "I had grown up with the idea and understanding that we live in a single union and it was hard for me imagine that such a huge state could crumble so abruptly," Alfreds Rubiks, 65, told Reuters in an interview.
    The Soviet occupation of Latvia and Baltic neighbours Lithuania and Estonia started in 1940, when Red Army troops invaded.
    Moscow tried desperately to stop the three leaving its grip after they declared sovereignty amid democratic reforms launched in the late 1980s by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
    Hardliners resorted to violence in early 1991, but they failed to turn back the tide.
    On January 20, 1991, an elite OMON unit of Soviet police attacked Latvia's Interior Ministry, which had come under the command of pro-independence forces after an election in 1990.
    Five were killed as the OMON took the building but later left it. No attacks were launched on parliament, where peaceful protestors had gathered as human shields to protect it.
    The violence, which came a week after Soviet troops killed 14 in a crackdown on neighbouring Baltic state Lithuania, will be commemorated by Latvian leaders on Saturday.
    Moscow's failure to crush the Baltics' independence movements, helped mark the end for the Soviet empire. Russia recognised the Baltics in September, after a failed coup in Moscow.
    SOVIET COLLAPSE BAD FOR LATVIA
    Rubiks, who was head of the Latvian Communist Party in 1991, served three years in jail for acting against the country's drive to regain independence, although he maintains that the orders for the OMON attack came from Moscow.
    However, he says he still thinks leaving the Soviet Union was a bad deal for Latvia, a country of 2.4 million people.
    "I was never in favour of Latvia quitting the Soviet Union because that would cut us off from huge economic resources available to us almost for free." But he added that it was now impossible to revive the Soviet Union.
    A career communist, Rubiks became popular as the reformist mayor of Riga for a campaign to root out needless bureaucracy and cut red tape.
    His hardline stand against the independence movement, though, sealed his fate as a political pariah.
    Ten years on, he puts the blame squarely on Gorbachev for the Soviet demise, and the violence that accompanied it.
    "He should not be saying he did not know about what was planned in Vilnius. I was a witness in Moscow, in Gorbachev's office, of his telephone conversation with Vilnius party and KGB leaders, when these events were discussed, saying that force would be used," Rubiks said.
    Rubiks has not disappeared from politics. He is chairman of the Latvian Socialist Party, which has four members of parliament, although by law he cannot be an MP himself because of his time in jail.
    Though out of favour now, Rubiks thinks he and other socialists will have their day again, and not just in Latvia.
    "We are facing a wall these days, but as Lenin used to say about the Russian Czarist regime, "The wall is a rotten one.""

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania tourism on the rise

PR Newswire Thursday, January 18, 2001 8:19:00 AM
Copyright 2001 PR Newswire

    HAMBURG, Germany, Jan. 18 (PRNewswire) -- Germany's travel specialist for the Baltic States "Schnieder Reisen" released its latest travel catalogue with 68 color pages of their extensive and widened packages for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as well as Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg.
    Included in the catalogue are trips and advice for vacations to the Baltic States -- including the capitals Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius -- but besides there are group tours offered, too.
    Recent additions to the program include bike tours of the Baltic States and special tours to celebrate Riga's 800-year anniversary.
    Also there are offers to the "opera event" and the "musical festival" in Riga or for the "Thomas-Mann-festival" in Nida (Nidden) on the Curonian spit (Kurische Nehrung).
    The catalogue also includes information about: ferries, hotel recommendations, automobile tours, architectural tips, river trips, cruises on the Baltic Sea and roundtrips by train.
    A free catalogue can be ordered at:
    Schnieder Reisen
    A trademark of CARA Tours GmbH Schillerstrasse 43
    D-22767 Hamburg
    Phone: +49-40-380-20-60
    Fax: +49-40-38-89-65
    info@schniederreisen.de
    http://www.schniederreisen.de

Today In History (January 20th) [excerpt]

AP Online Friday, January 19, 2001 7:00:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

    Today is Saturday, Jan. 20, the 20th day of 2001. There are 345 day left in the year.
    Today's Highlight in History:
    Ten years ago: During the Gulf War, Iraqi missiles were shot down by U.S. Patriot rockets as they approached Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Iraqi television showed interviews with seven downed allied pilots, three of them Americans. In Latvia, "Black Beret" commandos of the Soviet Interior Ministry attacked the republic's Interior Ministry headquarters, killing five people.

Latvia -- Crackdown Commemorated

AP US & World Saturday, January 20, 2001 2:38:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By STEVEN C. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

    RIGA, Latvia (AP) -- Latvians built bonfires outside parliament on a chilly Saturday to remember five people shot down by Soviet soldiers in the 1991 crackdown that failed to crush Latvia's independence movement.
    Parliament Speaker Janis Straume, in a special session held to launch an evening of commemorative events, recalled the courage of countrymen who defended key Riga buildings by serving as human shields against possible military aggression.
    "Your faith and determination flamed as brightly as the campfires ... They convinced the Soviets that terrorism was not going to force Latvians to concede," Straume said.
    Outside parliament, people filled the cobblestone streets to sing folk songs around bonfires similar to ones that warmed those who manned the makeshift barricades 10 years ago.
    "There was a feeling that we had to be there, that the time to stand firm had come," recalled Ainars Alkis, a student when he participated a decade ago.
    With the Soviet Union threatening to crumble, Soviet troops stormed Latvia's Interior Ministry on the night of Jan. 20, 1991. Five people died -- a little boy, two policemen and two documentary filmmakers.
    The troops never fired on those at parliament, and the attack only bolstered Latvia's drive for independence.
    After a failed Kremlin coup in August 1991, Latvia and its Baltic neighbors, Lithuania and Estonia, regained the independence they lost in 1940, when Soviet forces annexed them.
    "It was clear that the Soviet Union was dying," and military action to forestall that "just made people that much more determined to win at all costs," said Dainis Ivans, an independence movement leader.
    It was Ivans who, as deputy speaker of parliament in 1991, urged Latvians to barricade key locations in the capital.
    "People weren't worried about their own lives or property," he recalled. "Farmers drove their tractors into Riga. People used their own cars to block bridges."
    A week earlier, Soviet troops had attacked demonstrators in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, killing 14. Only Estonia escaped violence.
    When word came that the ministry was under attack, a team of Latvian filmmakers rushed to a park across the street. Minutes after the shooting began, a boy and two Latvian policemen were fatally wounded. Then the guns were turned on the cameramen.
    Andris Slapins, a well-known documentary filmmaker, was hit first. As he lay dying on the ground, coughing blood, he pleaded with partner Juris Podnieks to record the moment. "Film me, film me. They got me right in the heart."
    Filmmaker Gvido Zvaigzne also was hit. He died two weeks later in a hospital.
    The footage of the dying Slapins helped make "Homeland" an award-winning documentary about the Baltic independence movement.
    On Saturday, a series of modest stone markers placed in the park to remember the dead were covered with flowers, candles and tiny Latvian flags. A police honor guard kept vigil.
    Some Baltic leaders have called on Russia to bring those responsible for the deadly crackdown to trial.
    "Russia, while quick to claim all the benefits of the former U.S.S.R., has been negligent -- in my view, criminally negligent -- in assuming the responsibilities," said journalist Karlis Streips.
    Slapins' widow, Natasha Dushen, doesn't expect that to happen.
    "I've thought endlessly about who is to blame, but in the end, I think it was the system," she said. "It created primitive people by teaching them that everything can be solved by force of arms."
    "Andris once told me he would even give his life for Latvia to be free," she said. "The Soviet forces really underestimated that desire for freedom."

Australian court sets Kalejs extradition hearing

Reuters World Report Wednesday, January 24, 2001 10:02:00 PM
Copyright 2001 Reuters Ltd.
By Sonali Paul

    MELBOURNE, Jan 24 (Reuters) -- An Australian court set on Thursday the start of an extradition hearing to send alleged Nazi war criminal Konrad Kalejs back to Latvia for May 14.
    Kalejs, 87, was arrested in Melbourne in December after Australia received an official request for extradition from Riga to face trial on one charge each of genocide and war crimes.
    "At this stage there will be a date set for the commencement of a section 19 hearing on the 14th of May," Melbourne Magistrate Lisa Hannan ordered, referring to the extradition hearing.
    The start date of the extradition hearing will ultimately depend on the court being satisfied that Kalejs's lawyers, and the prosecution, had enough time to gather, translate and authenticate evidence dating back 58 years.
    The Australian government has said the case could take up to two years to resolve because Kalejs is opposing his extradition.
    Kalejs, on bail at a home for the elderly, was due to appear in court on Thursday for a procedural hearing but failed to show because he was sick, his lawyer, Gerard Lethbridge, said.
    Hannan extended Kalejs's bail to April 19 when another procedural hearing would be held.
    Lethbridge said it would take several weeks just to estimate how much time he would need to gather evidence, including information from court hearings which have been held in several locations such as the United States.
    "The issues are factually and forensically complex," he told the court.
    Lethbridge declined to comment to reporters on how sick Kalejs was or whether he was bedridden.
    Kalejs, who took Australian citizenship in 1957, was deported from the United States in 1994 and then from Canada in 1997 for lying on entry forms about his war past.
    He fled to Melbourne a year ago to avoid deportation from Britain. If extradited, he would be the first Latvian Nazi-era war crimes suspect to be brought to trial since the country regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
    Nearly all of Latvia's 70,000-strong Jewish population died during the World War Two occupation.
    While welcoming the legal proceedings against Kalejs, a representative from the Jewish group B'nai Brith Anti-Defamation Commission said there was a "distinct possibility" Kalejs could die before his extradition was resolved.
    "He's elderly and they say he's sick. One can only wait and see," Anti-Defamation Commission public affairs director Benseon Apple told Reuters.

Putin Dismisses Nato Expansion

AP Online Friday, January 26, 2001 2:06:00 PM
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press
By DEBORAH SEWARD, Associated Press Writer

    MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin set a gloomy tone Friday for relations with the new U.S. administration, bluntly dismissing NATO's eastward expansion as a "mistake" and warning that Russia expected America to work to preserve the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
    Putin's tough speech at the Russian Foreign Ministry was his first major foreign policy statement since President Bush was sworn in last week.
    A series of vital security issues are potential flash points for Bush and Putin, including U.S. proposals for a national missile defense system, further NATO expansion eastward toward Russia's borders and Russia's improving ties with nations the United States considers pariahs, including Iraq and Iran.
    NATO has been seeking to improve links with Russia that were badly damaged as a result of the alliance's 1999 bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, which Russia could not prevent and bitterly resented.
    On Thursday, NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson said he thought the "ice age" in relations with Russia was over and the alliance was "ready to go much further in our cooperation."
    In his speech Friday, Putin said he hoped for better relations with NATO, but the Russian leader gave no indication a fast improvement was in the offing.
    "If we are able to develop relations with NATO in the spirit of frankness, openness and constructive cooperation, that would be a significant contribution to strengthening European stability and our own security," Putin said.
    However, Putin said NATO's decision to include former Warsaw Pact members Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic in the alliance was a "mistake."
    Repeatedly over the past year, Putin has stressed Russia's opposition to further alliance expansion that could eventually include the former Soviet republics of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia -- putting NATO smack up against a long stretch of Russian territory.
    Putin was more ambiguous when addressing the creation of an American missile defense shield, which Bush has endorsed and hopes will defend the United States against threats from such countries as North Korea or Iran.
    The Russian leader hinted compromise was possible but stressed the United States must meet its obligations as well as work to preserve the ABM treaty, which would need amending if Washington were to go ahead with the missile plan.
    "Russia has done what the world community expected it to do," Putin said, referring to the ratification of START II and a global nuclear test ban. "Now we are expecting a response. I don't think that a unilateral disarmament of Russia is in anyone's interests," Putin said, adding that such a step would "irreparably" damage global security.
    Putin has warned previously that Russia would ditch all existing arms control agreements if Washington unilaterally backed out of the ABM treaty. Avoiding such a warning Friday, Putin held out hope of compromise.
    "We will have to do complex and delicate work this year with our partners to preserve the 1972 treaty. The latest statements from the leaders of the new administration, the new president, show that this dialogue could be positive. We strongly count on such joint work," Putin said.

Putin's comments remind us how important it is that we not forget the Latvian past. This week's picture is from Peters' second trip to Latvia, in August 1993. Summer or winter, there are always some flowers left in remembrance. The simple inscription reads:

    ANDRIS SLAPINS
    Cinema
    Producer-Photographer
    Shot Dead January 20, 1991