See All Photos ▶ See All Tours ▶ Editor’s Note: Jay Nordlinger spent the week of September 12 in the Baltic states — or rather, in two of them, Latvia and Estonia. A piece of his will soon appear in National Review magazine: about the Baltics, Russia, NATO, and America, particularly in light of our presidential campaign. This journal supplements the piece, and concerns matters weighty and light. My ticket says “JFK-HEL.” Going to HEL, huh? I think of something my driver’s ed teacher said — a beloved and witty man: “He was going like a bat out of … that place near Pinckney.” This HEL, of course, is Helsinki. And on this Finnair flight, people are reading Finnish newspapers, naturally. For me, the Finnish language is distinguished by double letters and dots over vowels. And this airline is distinguished by blueberry juice. I have never before had blueberry juice. And I’m told that Finnair is the only airline in the world that carries it.

The blueberry juice is produced by a family business, outside Helsinki. I hope they are doing very well. In the Helsinki airport, I see a Burger King. In prominent letters is the slogan “Home of the Whopper.” Right next to Burger King is Nordic Kitchen. Not far away is Two Tigers, which does sushi and noodles.Are they really putting Finland first? I am en route to Riga, the capital of Latvia. I think of a phrase: “rumors in Riga.” I learned it from Robert Conquest, the late historian of the Soviet Union. We were talking about organ harvesting in China: the Communists’ harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners, political prisoners, and others. Conquest was saying that people in free countries have long been reluctant to believe human testimony out of police states. When reports of horrors in the new Soviet Union first reached Paris and London, people dismissed them as “rumors in Riga.” When reports of the Holocaust circulated, they were “Jewish special pleading.”

When Cubans reached Florida, they were simply Batista stooges, aggrieved at the loss of their filthy capitalist enterprises. yo sushi dubai careersWhen people stumbled into Hong Kong — half dead — they were “war lords,” unhappy at the new, more equitable order.sushi grade tuna loin A cabbie takes me from the airport into Old Town, Riga. truyen tranh vua bep sushi onlineI say that I have never been to his country, until now. jiro dreams of sushi italia“It’s nothing special,” he says. sushi rolling mat singapore

I don’t know about that. He used to be a volleyball player. Went to Moscow several times, to compete.sushi maki menu nutrition The athlete I hear about, all over Riga, is Kristaps Porzingis. where to buy sushi grade fish utahHe is the country’s sole NBA player: a New York Knick. Back to the cabbie: He points out a TV tower, shaped like the Eiffel Tower. He remarks drily, “That’s the original. There is a copy in Paris.” Riga — central Riga, the heart of Riga — is a beautiful, Old World European city. Don’t miss it, if you can help it. As I walk the streets, I think of who has trampled them. Of course, they had help from locals, as such people always have help from locals — in Drancy, for example. In my observation, the world has one thing in common. No, I was thinking of T.G.I. Friday’s.

There is a tiny minority in Latvia called “Livonians.” They are considered the original inhabitants of the country. We have a Livonia, Mich. I have known many Livonians.I never knew where the name came from. I used to think of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavian states, etc., as Eastern Europe. I now see how wrong I was. This is Eastern Europe — the Baltics are. Certainly they are Northeastern Europe. Resolution: to make “Central Europe” a more regular phrase in my vocabulary. Speaking of vocabulary: Here in the Baltics, as elsewhere in the world, I think how lucky I am to have been born into the lingua franca of the world: English. In Riga, I’m staying at the Royal Square Hotel. There is no Royal Square, however. That’s just the name of the hotel. I have a local meal, i.e., a Latvian meal. A sort of casserole of gray peas, crispy onions, and bacon. Accompanied by a glass of buttermilk. Rupjmaizes kartojums, made from rye bread, with cowberries, a.k.a. lingonberries.

There is a lovely young waitress, talking to a bartender. They are speaking Russian. They are obviously Russophone Latvians, or ethnic-Russian Latvians. What do they feel is their nationality? What is their identity? I will explore this question a fair amount, while in this region. If you want to spend a civilized, informative hour, you could do worse than to spend it with Janis Kazocins. He is the national security adviser to Latvia’s president. Previously, he directed one of Latvia’s intelligence services. He was born in England, where his parents — Latvians — found refuge. He was trained at Sandhurst, the British military academy. He rose to brigadier general in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Then he went home to Latvia.That is an interesting question. We say that people such as Kazocins “went home.” But they came here — to Latvia, Lithuania, or Estonia — for the first time. They had never been able to set foot in their ancestral country. Their parents were refugees.

Their “return” was a spiritual return, so to speak. Kazocins is right out of Central Casting. Right out of Ian Fleming. Urbane, knowledgeable, subtle, amusing, handsome, brave. I didn’t know they made ’em this way anymore. Everyone in the Baltic states has a story — a story of parents and grandparents, if not themselves. Every family endured horrors — at the hands of Nazis, Soviets, or both. Kazocins’s grandfather was a musician. The Baltics are full of musicians. Lithuanians, Latvians, and Estonians are very musical people, and they are singers, in particular. In fact, their freedom movement, at the end of the Soviet era, was “the Singing Revolution.” In 1914, Kazocins’s grandfather was conscripted into the Russian army. Eventually, they sent him to officers’ training school. Sometime later, at the front, he started a choir. The young Latvian was a believer, or partial believer, in socialism. In all likelihood, he welcomed the Bolshevik revolution.

He saw the new country, the Soviet Union. All of his hopes were shattered. He died in 1921. His son, Kazocins’s father, was four. The father wound up in the Sudetenland. (Obviously, I am skipping a lot of drama.) He was taken prisoner by the Russians. He had an assumed name. He spent three years in eastern Russia, building roads. He and his wife wanted to go to the United States. (Again, I am skipping much, much drama.) Their second choice was Australia. Again they were refused. Great Britain took them in. Kazocins’s father had a choice: to be a farm laborer or a coal miner. He chose the former. The people on the farm — the Brits — were wonderful to him. The things people go through. The stories you hear in the Baltics are positively hair-curling. Kazocins’s first wife was an Englishwoman. (She passed away in 2001.) Kazocins himself spoke Latvian to their children — only Latvian. “This was odd in the officers’ mess. They found it very strange.”

He first came to Latvia, land of his parents and grandparents, in 1992. I ask Kazocins, “Was it emotional?” “Very much so,” he answers. “Was it novel and exciting to hear Latvian spoken on the streets?” “Well, half the people were speaking Russian.” During their decades of occupation, the Soviets strove to Russify their holdings. In this region, they brought Russians in and moved Balts out. By the end, the Latvian share of Latvia’s population had fallen to almost half. Janis Kazocins left the British army in 2002 — after exactly 30 years. He joined on August 23 and left on August 23. This is the most infamous date in the history of the Baltics: the date on which the Nazis and the Soviets signed their pact, in 1939. The pact drew up “spheres of influences.” The Soviets would get the Baltic states. About two years later, Hitler double-crossed his ally, Stalin. The Nazis took the Baltics. With the Germans finally defeated, the Soviets retook the Baltics, and brutalized and brutalized.