“To put it bluntly, if it wasn’t for the status of noncitizens, Latvia might have been part of Russia now … if all people living in Latvia in the beginning of the 90s were granted citizenship … I am quite confident that Latvia would have some sort of pro-Russian government now,” he said.
According to Andžāns, noncitizenship is “a matter of national security, and also a matter of national pride. Because it’s so easy to receive the citizenship.”
Naturalization requires knowledge of the language and the country’s history. But many noncitizens refuse to go through the process as a matter of principle.
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“I am a local citizen, this is my country, I was born here. I don’t have any other native land. Why should I go and prove something to someone?” said Duguškin, who works in the restaurant business, adding that he feels Latvian and European.
Eduards, who is an ethnic Ukrainian, said noncitizens are often made scapegoats for the existence of the Soviet Union.
“I think my family is a good example of how that just doesn’t make sense. On my mother’s side, my relatives were declared enemies of the people by the Soviet Union. On my father’s side, my relatives barely survived Holodomor [in 1932-33, also known as the Ukrainian Famine],” he said, adding that his family in 1991 voted “for” Latvia’s independence from the Soviet Union.
According to Eduards, the voices of stateless people are not heard, and many of them have given up on democracy and justice.
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