How a small Russian provocation in Riga failed
Reacting swiftly to an alert that was raised on the web, Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs a few days ago banned the entry to Latvia of a local St Petersburg politician, Savva Fedoseev, and it is hard to decide who fooled who in this story. The organizers of the fake lecture from a small opposition movement that actually exists in Russia or the Latvian Foreign Ministry.
According to a tweet, Fedoseev did allegedly come to Riga in the end, and this was after Rinkēvičs' announcement that the Russian had been blacklisted. However, the announced public lecture at least did not take place. Neither is there such a restaurant in Riga to which compatriots were invited, nor has Fedoseev written the announced book on the subjugation and assimilation of Latvians in the Russian Empire.
"Письма из Риги"
Such a book "Письма из Риги" ("Letters from Riga") does exist, but it was published in 1848 and was written by Yuri Samarin, a Russian Slavophile and an official of the Russian Imperial Interior Ministry in Riga. The object of his research was the Baltic dislike of the Russian people, and the work proposes a methodology for turning the Russian Empire into a national Russian state. So - to Russify everybody. And in this context, the politician Savva Fedoseev, who has become persona non grata in Latvia, as well as the political movement "Общество. Будущее" (Society. Future), also represents ideas of Bolshevik chauvinism.
There is an opposition in Russia, including one that wants to come to power in order to do effectively the same thing as the current regime. The political movement "Society. Future" aims to "Build a strong and free Russia". In the program, the protection of Russians and Russian culture is defined as the most important task of the state. The army and navy are defined as Russia's most important allies. And "Crimea is Russia. It was, it is and it will be". So, yet another power-hungry force justifying the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.
The joke got out of hand
What does this have to do with Latvia and the blacklisting of Savva Fedoseev? Danils Mahnickis, co-founder of the movement, writes that it all started as a prank, a joke. But the pranksters lost control of the joke. One of the organization’s board members allegedly created a fake profile on Twitter for a Latvian branch of the organization that does not exist and posted a notice about a lecture by Russian oppositionist Savva Fedoseev in Riga on July 8 with a presentation of the aforementioned book. The Latvian Twitter audience immediately got so worried - what is this organization from Russia and who are these chauvinists coming to brainwash Latvian Russians - that they did not even notice a suspicious detail - the lecture has been promised in a vegan restaurant AsparaGoose, which has not existed for a couple of years. Maybe Savva Fedoseev fell for the joke of his political associates, maybe he was going to Latvia on private business, but the pranksters obviously did not foresee the following sequence of events.
This is not a prank
On July 5, Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs took note of the latest storm on Latvian Twitter and announced:
"Based on Section 61 (2) of the Immigration Law, Savva Fedoseev, a citizen of the Russian Federation, is included in the list of persons undesirable for the Republic of Latvia, and is banned from entering Latvia for an indefinite period of time."
On July 6, Savva Fedoseev said: "I am not going to fly to Riga this Friday because... Because our domain Society. Future will take part in the municipal by-elections in St. Petersburg."
And then the most interesting thing: on July 8, Savva Fedoseev posted a picture on his account showing himself at some hotel breakfast table with a lady, with the caption - breakfast in Riga. This could be just another joke, as Savva Fedoseev has been banned from entering Latvia. And this is definitely not a prank. But maybe Fedoseev did manage to get into the country somehow, and he gave a lecture about the disobedient Baltic people to that lady at the breakfast table.
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