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The original was posted on /r/latvia by /u/lovepossums on 2025-08-19 15:30:11+00:00.

Sorry if this post isn’t very concise or appropriate, it’s just something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I’m a Russia-born Israeli Jew from a fairly mixed family with some Latvian heritage. I didn’t grow up with the culture but I feel increasingly interested in and drawn to it.

My mom’s mom is half-Latvian half-Jewish, mom’s dad is quarter-Latvian (the rest is Ukrainian and German) and my dad’s Jewish ancestry is geographically from Latvia. So yeah, that’s pretty distant and I don’t want to be like those Americans claiming they’re Cherokee princesses because of a DNA test or calling themselves Irish solely because of getting drunk on Saint Patrick’s Day.

That said, I’m a huge family history nerd and have been doing a lot of archival research over the past few years. First I found church records for two of my Latvian lines going back to the 1700s, and then many individual stories, including the fact that my great-grandfather’s uncle was a Latvian riflemen, got wounded in action near Jelgava in WWI, moved to Russia and then was murdered by the NKVD as an alleged Latvian spy.

For some rather irrational reason, reading these stories and learning the history of the villages my Latvian ancestors came from and what their daily life could have been like back in the 19th century fascinates me more than researching any other lines (German which includes assimilated Prussian Lithuanians, Ukrainian, a tad bit of Estonian and whatnot). I also fell in love with what Latvian sounds like and started learning the basics of the language a couple years ago for no practical reason, I’m just drawn to it in a way I don’t feel about other languages I’ve learned.

I first visited Riga three years ago and found the church where a few of my ancestors were baptized, then had a work trip to Estonia last year and managed to sneak off to Valmiera for a day and loved it too! Planning to return for a vacation in November this year.

Not sure why I’m writing this whole thing but I guess I needed to share that I’m weirdly increasingly in love with your beautiful country and proud of having a connection to it. I wonder if there are descendants of the Latvian diaspora here who had a similar experience of gradually reconnecting with the culture, would love to hear your stories if you’re here!

Lastly, just hypothetically, if I ever decide to move to Latvia, do you think it’s realistic to integrate and eventually be perceived as a repatriate of sorts and not a cringey foreign weirdo obsessed with irrelevantly distant people? Does it make any sense to think of myself as part of the Latvian diaspora in the broadest sense?

I’m especially wary about this because, well, I was born and raised in Russia. I never identified with that country, honestly I’d like to see it dissolved so that it stops attacking neighbors forever and gives independence to the still-colonized peoples like the Tatars and the Chechens. I’m very happy that I left Russia a while ago and haven’t visited since (I’d be arrested by the FSB if I did), but it’s still a part of my biography I guess, and I understand that Latvia is rightfully allergic to anything Russian because of the occupation and ongoing refusal of some local Russians to learn the language and respect the state they live in.