Despite the "innovative" proposals that have emerged in recent weeks of the outgoing year – the initiative by the Deputy Chair of the Committee on Communication and Transport of the Riga City Council, Ansis Pupols (National Alliance), to deprive 6,000 pensioners from Russia and Belarus of free public transport in the capital – it can be stated that, in general, migrants are not chased away by their passports… But quite by their appearance!
Let’s assume that if the colleague from the faction, Lauris Erenpreiss, had not encountered two colorful couriers in turbans with boxes, his angry cry of the soul might not have been born: "It used to be that if you start working with food products, you have to go through the Food and Veterinary Service (FVS). You had to go to doctors for all sorts of checks. But I don’t know who these guys’ family doctor is and who regulates this business?!"
Most likely, the Duma official could have addressed his party leader, Vice Mayor Ewards Ratnieks, directly, who threatened to uproot all illegal migrants. But everything was limited to meetings with the police leadership. Because all those guys from South Asia, who are cutting through the Latvian snow on Chinese electric bicycles with inflated tires, have the legal right to work.
Of course, one could decide within a specific municipality to say "we prohibit such services as food delivery" – and that’s it! If you want to have lunch, welcome to the nearest public catering. Which, by the way, is easier for the FVS to check, as well as for the State Language Center. At the same time, those who will work in cafes and restaurants will surely be more or less integrated residents. At least from the brotherly, fighting country of Eastern Europe. And at the same time, the monstrous amount of packaging will not overload the trash bins.
And if we are already mentioning incoming refugees, let’s also recall that next year their public transport fares in Riga will cost 3.3 million euros just for the first half of the year. Is this a lot or a little – let’s compare it with the total costs for repairing intra-block asphalt in the capital: 3.3 million euros for the entire year of 2026. And since all "refugee" monthly tickets in Riga are personalized and issued under a specific identification, the Department of Environment and Mobility confirms: yes, they travel, and very actively.
Returning to the topic of Russian pensioners with residence permits, we have to transfer this heart-wrenching saga to our endless future. Which, it seems, is being decided not only in the Republic of Latvia.
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