I was born in Riga and grew up in Riga except for early childhood and summers in countryside.
My parents were not born in Riga, so I'm 1st generation Riganian. They were working in science and educational institutions at that time as well as most of their working lives.
Up until 1985 (approximately of course, I think it rarely happens overnight) I was 99% classical product of USSR with just some (and mostly) annoying hint that different perspective(s) exist. I defended socialism as a political system if somebody tried to compare it to others.
I voluntarily took a position which most probably doesn't have a name in english speaking world, latvian "politinformators", russian "политинформатор". Basically a guy (starting at age around 10 or 11!) who reads some newspapers, thinks he has figured out what's most important there and then tries to explain it to classmates. I have vague memory that the main criteria for choosing a topic was kind of easy - by font size of the headline :D I officially had 15 minutes per week for class action, including the right to have feedback from classmates and evaluate that feedback on the fly. The content was headlines on the first pages of official press = official view of external politics of USSR and internal politics, basically bigger or smaller decisions of Communist party of USSR or Latvia SSR on political, economical, social, cultural, every one and each aspect of citizens' lives.
My hobbies were reading enormous amount of books, seriously extra mathematics, trying to figure out how different tech works, mostly electronics. I wrote my first code during that time in assembler like code of so called programmable calculators.
Don't get me wrong, I was alive child. I have some record of nastiness like pulling the (right) girls by hair, tripping somebody and skipping homework occasionally, but mainly my grades were very good and I had my behaviour rate of "satisfactory" most of the time. Meaning, I was becoming an exemplary soviet citizen as it was called at that time. Ew, I hated sports, but managed somehow by trying hard enough in order NOT to stand out too much, even got some insignificant youth grade in RLD. NOT standing out was one of critical properties of exemplary soviet citizen, btw :|
I remember that sometimes at night I was afraid that bloody imperialists will drop atomic bombs over Riga. Later on I learned that my parents being part of science system got a small piece of land outside Riga to build small cottage and grow some peas just for case like that. At that time, however, I thought it was in order to have a place to punish me by some work during weekends :D Even more later I recognised that I have learned from my father how latvians build small cottages, it's more like real house by functionality if not by size.
I clearly remember leaders of USSR dying one after another during first half of eighties, because TV showed just classical music and ballet on those days, we got free day from classes, but were gathered together in school in order to watch funerals, some teachers were crying watching it. Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, that was the order. And I didn't Google it while writing in order to be sure of names or the order. Now I tend to think that for me it was the first hint that the system is dying. And maybe it really was the hint and not just for me.
Around 1985 several things started to happen simultaneously.
As one of the first of my class I was asked to become a member of Komsomol. I refused, even not understanding why. And there were no consequences, just a hint that I will join _anyway_ during my mandatory service in Soviet military (which I luckily avoided, but that's another story too).
Gorbachev with glasnost and perestroika happened to USSR. Positions in Cold war appeared to be not so monumental.
At that time I started to recognise that not everything learned in school and in soviet society was true. I still believe that mostly it was, but there were a lot of humanly unbelievable and criminal lies around too.
My teens went wild. My interests turned towards hanging around with peers, sometimes nights boozing, smoking, trying to approach girls. For a few times I was involved in street fights mainly happening just because we were Latvians and they were Russians. I became quite uncontrollable to the horror for my very tolerant parents and teachers. Fortunately, it was enough in me not to slip hard. My grades fell, but not completely to the mid or the other end of the scale. Sometimes I wonder how I managed it. Maybe there is simply more curiosity in me than were in other peers and I was not able to stand that much emptiness and routine? Maybe I was just saying fuck-you to society I grew up? I still have things to learn about me :) But maybe it was just teens.
So went the period before 1991 for me: learning things in school, learning to live, thinking about the meaning of life (it's 42 as we know now :) but that's worth a separate post); things in me changing physically, rationally, emotionally; things around me in society changing in a pace of express train instead of almost not changing at all before that; more or less boozing and hanging around. From today's perspective I evaluate it as almost normal teen life with usual set of confuse and drive, but extra changes in society added extra excitement and confuse.
1990. I precisely remember "YES!!!" feeling when supporters of Latvia independence won election early 1990. At the same time I was sent to military aviation radar following preparation courses by Soviet military. And I remember exactly that there were thick feeling of threat starting to build up too. I spent summer of 1990 hiding from mandatory service in Soviet military. And I got into Latvian University in September.
Next was January 1991, Riga, barricades.
