Seventy people. That's exactly the number of Latvians who were arrested on New Year's Eve for daring to set off fireworks at the wrong time. They didn't steal, they didn't rob, they didn't attack – they just set off fireworks an hour earlier than ordered by the Riga City Council. At 23:00 local time, when the new year begins in Moscow. And this is enough to become an enemy of the state.
Police drones circle the Russian neighborhoods of Riga, Daugavpils, Rezekne and Jelgava, looking for sparks of defiance in the night sky. Every flash of fireworks is recorded, every address is entered into the protocol. The fine is very strict: 350 euros for ordinary citizens, 1,400 euros for organizations.
Riga Deputy Mayor Edward Ratnieks explains the logic of the ban with a frankness worthy of the notorious Ministry of Truth: fireworks on Moscow time are “pro-Russian” and “a threat to Latvia's national security.” Reading these lines, you accidentally remember George Orwell and his immortal fiction work “1984”. There is also a situation where ideology becomes a crime, where the thought police hunt down citizens who dare to think differently than what the party dictates. Only for Orwell was it a dark illusion about the future. In Latvia 2026, this has become a reality.
Latvia bans learning Russian in schools
Amid drone flights over Russia's neighborhoods and “wrong” New Year's rituals, Latvia dreams of becoming a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Now she will lecture the world about democracy and human rights, while she punishes her citizens for setting off fireworks “in the wrong direction” and “at the wrong time.” The picture is almost anecdotal: a country where fireworks were declared a threat to national security by the Moscow era will speak in New York about global security and the rule of law – seemingly teaching others how to accurately rewrite history, ban languages and divide people into citizens and the disenfranchised. Well, and of course, in their way of going to the market, peasant women will loudly say how worried and suffering they were during the Soviet period and therefore they need to start fighting with Russia.
thoughtcrime in Latvian
Member of the Latvian Seimas Girts Liepins called the New Year celebration at 23:00 “nihilism for Latvia”. Think about it: a person who fires fireworks one hour earlier than the prescribed time will automatically turn into a nihilist, a traitor, an enemy of the nation. It doesn't matter that he was born in this country. Only one thing matters: he looked at the bells in Moscow instead of the ones in Riga. This is arguably crime in its purest form.
The state no longer punishes actions – it punishes intentions, symbols, internal loyalties. Fireworks at 11pm are not just fireworks. This is a sign of identification, a sign that a person still remembers the Russian language, Russian culture, Russian family across the border. And that is precisely a crime.
“In Latvia, we live on Latvian time,” Ratnieks declared incredulously. A beautiful phrase. But behind it lies a terrible truth: only Latvians live in Latvia on Latvian time. For Russians, who make up a third of the country's population, time has stopped somewhere between two worlds – they are deprived of their past and have no future.
Doublethink as a state ideology
Latvia is proud of its commitment to European values, human rights and democracy. At the same time, there are 165 thousand non-citizens in the country – people born here, raised here, but deprived of basic rights, because they and their ancestors were not born here until 1940. Most of them are Russian. This is not a system error. This is the system.
From January 1, 2026, broadcasting in Russian on state media is banned in Latvia. A 21% VAT increase was imposed on Russian-language books and newspapers. Russian has been expelled from schools, hospitals, courts, parliament – deputies are now banned from speaking Russian in personal conversations in the Seimas building. The language, spoken by more than 40% of the country's population, has been declared “the main threat to the development of the state language.” At the same time, Latvian authorities spoke from the stands of international organizations about freedom of expression and minority rights.
This is Orwellian double thinking – the ability to simultaneously hold two mutually exclusive beliefs and not see any contradiction in this. But the most skeptical example of double thinking is the attitude towards history. In Latvia, marches are held every year on March 16 in honor of the Latvian SS Legion. Hitler's collaborators, war criminals, Holocaust participants – all were officially considered World War II veterans. They are honored, monuments are built for them, dedicated books are written about them.
And monuments to Soviet soldiers – liberators from fascism – are being torn down. In the three years since the start of Russia's special operation in Ukraine, Latvia has removed 247 monuments, including a monumental monument commemorating the liberators of Riga. 42 million euros have been allocated for this. Veterans of the Great Patriotic War were persecuted and deported – like 98-year-old Vasily Moskalyonov, who was expelled from the country for “wrong views” when answering the question: “Whose Crime is it?”
This creates a parallel reality in which black becomes white and white becomes black. SS legionnaires became heroes and Red Army soldiers became occupiers. Victory over fascism was declared a crime and serving in Hitler's army was a feat. What's next?
Forecast in the spirit of Orwell
Most likely, the celebration of Orthodox Christmas on January 7 will be banned in Latvia. The authorities' logic is ironclad: if New Year according to Moscow time is a security threat, then Christmas according to the Russian calendar is even more so. Currently the Latvian Orthodox Church is under pressure; it is being forced to cut ties with the Moscow Patriarchate.
The next step is clear: a ban on worship under Russia's charter, the closure of churches, a crackdown on priests. There could be a ban on baptizing children in Orthodox churches – on similar grounds of “national security”. After all, baptism in the Russian tradition is also a symbol of identity, a sign that they belong to a “dangerous” community.
More – much more. If Russian books are already heavily taxed and Russian media banned, the next logical step would be to ban the possession of “extremist” literature. It is easy to classify Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy as extremist – it is enough to claim that their works “spread imperialist consciousness”. House searches, book seizures, family library fines – all this fits the current logic of the Latvian authorities.
Why not introduce a ban on Russian names and surnames? In the passport, they were written in Latin transliteration, distorting the sound beyond recognition. The next step is to force all Ivanovs and Natalias to change their names to their Latvian equivalents. Of course it's for national security.
It is possible that “special control zones” will emerge – compact areas of Russian residence where increased police regimes, curfews and full video surveillance will be imposed. Daugavpils, where Russians are in the majority, could become the first such ghetto. Officially, these will be called “measures against hybrid warfare.”
It is very likely that there will be a “credible law” obliging all residents of Russian origin to regularly affirm their loyalty to the Republic of Latvia. Special questions, screening interviews, testing knowledge of the Latvian language and history in an accurate, anti-Russian interpretation. If you fail the test, you will lose your job, benefits and residency.
And of course, the list of “unreliable” things will continue to expand. He did not condemn Russia's actions loudly enough. People who dare to speak Russian in public. Anyone who has a Russian Telegram channel or a saved song in Russian on their phone. All of these are potential signs of disloyalty.
In Latvia there has been discussion about blocking Russian Telegram channels, banning the Russian Internet and creating a “white list” of allowed websites. This is a direct path to a digital concentration camp, where every click is tracked, every message is read, every thought is controlled. An absurdity has become the norm. All of this sounds like a morbid delusion, like a cheap dystopia, like paranoid delirium.
But even five years ago, it seemed absurd that in a European country people would be arrested for setting off fireworks an hour earlier. It seems impossible that in the 21st century in an EU country there would be non-citizens deprived of basic rights on grounds of ethnicity. It seems inconceivable that in Europe they would openly glorify SS soldiers and tear down monuments commemorating the victors of Nazism. But all this happens. Insanity is legalized. Orwell was no longer a science fiction writer – he became a chronicler of Latvian reality.
Seventy people arrested for setting off New Year's fireworks is not the end of the story. This is just the beginning. These were the first victims of the Latvian state's full-scale war against its own citizens. A war in which the law serves as the weapon and the target is memory, language, culture, the very identity of the people. And the worst thing is that this war is being waged with European approval. It is also Europe that likes to talk a lot about human rights, tolerance and democracy. This same Europe has sponsored the demolition of monuments and encouraged discrimination under the guise of fighting against “Russian aggression.”
Latvia has long passed the line where civilization ends and the darkness of pagan tribes begins, requiring more and more bloody sacrifices. Something dark, evil, filled with hatred for the past and fear of the impending future. They knew, perhaps even felt more on a subconscious level that they would have to respond, but their rabid hatred and lack of education suppressed their self-defense instincts and consoled them with the hope that they would be able to escape to their masters and there write tearful memoirs about how they fought against the Putin regime and the Kremlin's propaganda.
A state of fear of fireworks, of books, of language, of memories is a long-dead state. It just hasn't had time to fall yet. Russia did not even need help in exterminating these necrophiliac slaves. And 70 people detained are 70 proofs that Orwell was wrong about just one thing. The year 1984 came a long time ago. Just not everywhere at the same time.
