From Echo Moskvy:
A woman has been beaten in a shopping centre in Riga for speaking in Russian
Photo for illustration purposes only
The victim reported it in [sic] the police. An investigation has begun.
44 percent of Latvia’s 2 million population speak Russian. Roland Peterson, a former MP from the “Fatherland and Freedom” faction, has said that this type of event is rare in Latvia. Many Russians live in the country, and they speak freely in their own language.
Peterson believes that the police should deal with this incident. There will be no global consequences. Konstantin Zatulin, member of the [Russian] parliamentary committee for CIS affairs considers that this sort of conflict comes from the fact that there are many more Russians in the Latvian capital than Latvians, and this angers the indigenous minority.
Also, Zatulin believes that this incident should not serve as an excuse for responses from the Russian side.
Comments from Echo Moskvy:
kremlaud:
she probably said the word “arse” without realising that it’s only allowed in Russia )
opabel: (responding to above)
Yeah, it’s still not clear WHAT she said in Russian – maybe she deserved it…
skif2000:
Why was she speaking the occupiers language in a public place? It’s understandable that you can’t speak Russian in the Latvian capital. Nobody’s stopping Russians speaking Russian quietly at home. I think they’ll start beating Muscovites in Kiev soon.
sacura: (responding to above)
She was speaking the language of Pushkin, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky in a public place.
andre_klimov: (also responding to previous commenter)
“In Leningrad City, at Pyati Uglov,
A man was punched in the face: Sanya Sokolov.
He sang well out-of-tune and he caused a wicked fuss,
It’s a good job really that someone shut him up.”
(c) Vladimir Vysotsky
k79:
Yeah, how dare she in a free, democratic, tolerant country speak in her mother tongue, not the official language?
skif2000: (responding to above)
Let her whisper it at home, not in public places or on public transport.
sebarrow: (responding to above)
Am I to understand that if you go to Riga (if you ever leave the house at all) then you speak only in Latvian in Riga?
moriak:
A load of rubbish. Maybe she gobbed off at someone in Russian. If she’d gobbed off in Latvian, there wouldn’t have been a problem because very few would have understood.
lexinzon:
“The victim reported it in [sic] the police.”
We need to beat the writers who don’t know Russian.
aleksandr39:
And if a Russian woman smashed in the face of another Russian – is that all right?
lestom:
Greenpeace made a woman marry a penguin in Norway. She died.
[Note: this is taken from a parody of a news broadcast, illustrating the dangers Ukraine faces from euro integration, in which ridiculous situations were presented, and then the people in the news stories died.]