|
Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
|
 |
Latvia: Ethnic community calls for restitutionThe Jewish community in Latvia is again calling for restitution of its real estates; the properties were belonging to this community up to 1940. In particular, the community is calling for restitution of those properties where the religious schools and synagogues were located before the Second World War. The community claims that the community itself built these properties, that there were no public money invested in these estates before the forced confiscation, and that therefore the confiscation itself was illegal. The Justice ministry of Latvia has already set up a committee that have already started discussions on the eventual restitution of the properties confiscated from the Jewish community. In 2006, the Latvian parliament rejected a bill for money compensation amounting for more than $67 million, partly to cover the cost of the confiscated properties. Latvia existed briefly as an independent state after the World War I. In 1940 it was occupied by the Red Army as part of the Soviet-Nazi secret division of the Eastern Europe into spheres of influence agreed upon a year earlier just before the start of the World War II in Europe. The new Soviet authorities immediately confiscated most of the private property in 1940, both commercial and residential. This was indiscriminate confiscation; not only the Jewish community, one of the most important in the Baltic region, suffered. Some public buildings, however, remained community centers as part of the Soviet multiethnic policy that encouraged the vitality of the smaller ethnicities at the expense of the bigger within the Union. The situation in Latvia changed once again one year later, in 1941, when the country was briefly occupied by the Nazi Germany as part of its plans for destruction of the Soviet Union. The ethnic Latvians greeted the German army, considered as liberating force. The Jews, those who hadn't time to flee to east, were either killed on the spot, or sent to extermination camps. When the Red Army took Latvia once again at the end of the Second World War, the Jewish community was already largely destroyed, and some of its buildings suffered physical damages. Later some of them were restored with public financing. The situation in Latvia regarding the Jewish properties isn't exceptional within the Eastern Europe. What's rather exceptional is the lack of enthusiasm coming from the local authorities to deal with this situation and reach mutually acceptable solution almost two decades after the independence from the Soviet Union.
Latvia profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Latvia.
|
See also:
