The Big Problems of a Small Town

The local Rēzekne district newspaper "Rēzeknes vēstis" has a column called "Hello! RV is listening!" In it, the newspaper's readers, residents of the city and district, have the opportunity to call the editorial office and "get things off their chest". Some topics even develop into a "chat" where readers exchange experiences or "pleasantries" from issue to issue, and if you are lucky and the accused culprit, or the culprit's boss, or the boss's boss also reads this column, then some publicly stated problem even gets resolved. We decided to take a look at this column too.

• A mother complained - she had gone with her child to GORS to watch a film and - oh horror! - there was no popcorn! It makes you laugh. Children should eat at home, not litter the cinema.
• I would like to express bitterness and indignation about the State Employment Agency (NVA). In the offices sit young, never-before-seen employees whose attitude towards job seekers is, to put it mildly, degrading - they advise buying newspapers with job ads, searching online, etc. But a long-term unemployed person has no money for a newspaper and no internet. What help do these "high-born" NVA employees provide?
• I don't understand why GORS is "Latvia's Latgale Embassy"? Then there should also be a Latgale Ambassador!
• We have no peace from our building's house elder. It's always loud in his flat, my flat's ceiling is damp. When we go to him to raise our complaints, he doesn't open the door. Perhaps the police could come?
• From everything I read and hear, the impression forms that at "Zeimuls" they only sing and dance. But the city lacks activity groups for boys to learn practical male skills.
• Dear residents of the building on Maskavas Street! Please do not bring your rubbish to the waste containers of our building on Metālistu Street!
• In the northern district trees were sawn down. I would like to hear what the Environmental Management specialists have to say about this. The city plants few trees, and frequently young saplings are broken by hooligans. Yet trees protect us from dust and exhaust fumes! It is unpleasant that this is unknown to the educated grown-up officials.
• I am outraged! How can meteorologists work so irresponsibly! Where is the promised rain from 10 to 15 September? I postponed roof repairs, but outside the sun is shining brightly! This service is as pointless as our police!
• Calling from Purvītis and Grāvji Street. We want to ask the city council: when will the road be repaired? We have to walk through potholes and puddles. Perhaps we should stop paying taxes to the city council?
• The quota for ultrasound examinations at the Rēzekne polyclinic has run out. I was offered to have them done for a fee and given a yellow form to sign. At home I read it and I am in shock: it turns out I signed a waiver of a state-funded procedure.
• I would like to request: official institutions should write the full name on envelopes when sending us some notice or other. Our building has four people with the same surname and first initial.
• Outrage grips me reading the city ecologist's laughable answer about where to put fallen leaves. What barbecue? What kind of council specialist is that? What ridiculous rules? No thought given to people at all.
• On Saturday I was travelling from Riga in a minibus (marshrutka). The whole way something rattled in the vehicle so badly that you feared it would fall apart. The driver made do with jokes. Can you really put a vehicle in such a condition on a route?
• In his pre-election campaign our city mayor promised to put pavements and courtyard access roads in order. I would like to know when he will start fulfilling his promises.
• Calling from Skolas Street. As a result of the house elder's inaction, half of the stairwell was unlit. As a result, a robber attacked a resident of the building and snatched her bag.
• I was at the polyclinic at the dentist's. When I went up to the 3rd floor, I read there that outer garments must be left in the cloakroom, which it turned out is on the 1st floor. I barely found it...
• I have a question for Mr Spričs of "Rēzeknes namsaimnieks": why does he never see visitors himself but only sends them to others?
• A man who lives near the "Valentīna" shop buys beer and cigarettes for children. Four of them are Romani and one is a Russian boy. I saw these children drinking beer and smoking. But then, drunk, they broke into a private house and robbed it. There you have it!
• Is refuse collection with the parish tractor a paid service or some individual's private business?
• We who sell vegetables, potatoes and seeds in the market have been forced to manage without a toilet for half a month, because the toilet in the red building has been locked shut. Men can go around the corner, but what are women to do?
• I have IZZI television. On 31 October the TVC channel was not showing. Why was there no information? How can it be disconnected like that?
• I would like to appeal to "RV" readers - perhaps someone knows how to treat a horse for heaves?
• (in one of the next issues!) I wanted to reply to the person who asked how to treat a horse for heaves. Pour boiling water over an old wasps' nest and let it steep. Then add this infusion to the water given to the horse. A juniper infusion can also be made - also a good remedy!
• I want to defend our caretaker, and therefore through the newspaper I appeal to "Rēzeknes namsaimnieks" with a request not to pay attention to those complainers and not to take their words seriously.
• We appeal to hunter Anatolijs B. Dear sir! Please do not let your black dog loose. There are people around - including children!
• Those people who, when speaking about the new concert hall, think only of "the evil gore" are themselves obsessed. But there is also the Holy Gore, the Purchased Gore... It seems to me that Gors is better than some foreign word that cannot be pronounced.
• We, the parents of pupils and kindergarteners from Rikava, ask the police to install a speed bump in the centre of the village, as large lorries, grain trucks and timber trucks do not react to the "Children" sign.
• Dear residents of the third floor, first stairwell, building 47 on Raiņa Street! Please wash the windows and the stairs on your floor. Everything here has become overgrown with cobwebs and the windows have already turned black. Soon cockroaches will appear, and the building's residents will not be pleased about that.
• A beer kiosk was installed on the stadium grounds. Children train there! It is a Sports School! Where are the councillors looking?
• On behalf of pensioners, we say a big thank you to the drivers of routes 15 and 18 for their punctuality and the attentiveness with which they treat us and take us to the allotments.
• At the market I saw a woman selling ears of corn. And people buy them - for eating or for animals. But, dear people, if that corn is from the Sprujeva fields it is not intended for either human or animal consumption - it is processed into bioenergy.
• I am calling on behalf of a group of teachers from a city school. One of our teachers filed a complaint with the State Language Inspectorate about a colleague. How low does a person have to be! How can such a person teach children and work in a team! Fortunately, the complaint was not upheld.
• In Malta, in a building on Stacijas Street, a new horse is sold every week. Interesting, where do they come from?
• There's no need to scold Gavari-Karpovs and Bartaševičs! They did eventually buy the MRI machine. It's just that it hasn't been working for six months already...
• It is not fair that a child who lives in the suburbs but attends kindergarten in Rēzekne has to buy a full-price bus ticket. Why such injustice?
• Please write that on Atbrīvošanas Avenue, near building 95, opposite the café, the national flag should be renewed. It is too worn out - embarrassing in front of visitors to the city!
• I am puzzled by the Lāčplēsis Day events. As I understand it, they are organised only by the church. The council ignores Lāčplēsis Day. In my opinion, that is not acceptable.
• Well, I never! In Ozolaine the manager was removed from her post, but she continues to drive around in the parish jeep!
• I would like to know what "wise" head decided to close the newspaper kiosk near the central market? Near supermarkets, understandably, it helps them survive and thrive. But having to trudge all the way from the central market to "TOP" for a newspaper! Absurd!
• Here in Viļāni there are 23 outlets (we counted) selling not alcohol but some kind of rotgut. Can the police really see and know nothing? They know very well. I saw myself how the local policeman walks past Ināra's outlet and turns aside, just so as not to see or smell anything.

Of course, these are just some of the topics from the "RV is listening" column, gathered from newspapers that miraculously have not yet ended up as kindling for the stove or "on the nail". The questions are mostly rhetorical. Also left unanswered are: the purpose for which the Rēzekne council travelled on an "experience exchange" visit to... Turkey; why bus tickets must be bought at the railway station while the bus departs from the "almost" bus station several kilometres away. "Almost" - because the Rēzekne city administration somehow managed to plan things so that only one company's buses can enter the city bus station.

Particular reader indignation was also aroused by the raising of building management fees by 3 cents. As "Rēzeknes namsaimnieks" explained - the management fee is being raised in connection with the rise in the national minimum wage. You see, the caretaker will henceforth need to be paid more.

* The article uses materials from the newspaper "Rēzeknes vēstis", as well as observations and conclusions of Rēzekne residents and visitors.