RadekSkylark
Member
- Joined
- May 8, 2016
- Messages
- 136
Hallo, everyone.
This is probably not going to be a usual kind of thread for this forums, but as I didn't know a better place to find people who are into guns/survival etc. I decided to post this thread here. This thread is not going to be about guns or survival in particular, but rather about me taking a decision about what should I do to keep my family safe, or in other words - I'm hoping you can discuss the subject with me so that I can make the decision easier.
So here is my story.
I'm 27 years old, I have a wife (she's my age) and a 10 months old daughter. We live in Latvia, Riga (Baltic States - eastern/northern Europe). I've recently graduated from university (bachelors in civil engineering) and I'm currently working as a structural engineer in one of the best design offices in Latvia. In a month I'll start my masters' studies, which I intend to finish in 5 or 10 months (it depends). My wife has received her bachelor degree in materials science 5 years ago. Now she's on paid leave (because of our daughter) until August 2018, when she'll return to her job, or possibly some other job. Our daughter will be 10 months old in a week, and she'll start attending local kinder garden in September 2018.
As many of you may know (or may not know) Russia occupied Crimea a few years ago and has backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since. This, of course, has raised a certain amount of distress in Latvians, as historically we have been subjected to an occupation more than once.
After occupation of Crimea, I started to realize that hybrid warfare could be possible in Latvia as we - this was when I started to think that possibly I should attain a CCW license and get a handgun, which I did, struggling through many of problems I had to face to attain the license (I have another topic where there is more info on this, although I haven't had time to update any info on my progress on anything, because there has been none as I seriously lack free time). Somewhere at the same time, we started to think that we would want to relocate to, ideally, the US, or some other great country, which is safe and has a lot of opportunities to evolve in business and life in general and to raise our family in that country. As this is not as easy as getting in the car and driving where we want, we decided to postpone this decision until I graduate.
Now, since our daughter was born, I couldn't help but wonder about my wives and daughters safety here in Latvia in case something would happen, either hybrid warfare or conventional. Some of you may know that there are certain views on the matter concerning Russia's interest in Baltic states, and for me, some of the views are really alarming. Anyway, I'm sure that if something serious were to happen we would be occupied and if NATO or someone else would respond Latvia wouldn't be anything but a battlefield, so in any such scenario, there's nothing good for Latvians what so ever. If there's something to learn from occupation all over the history, it is the repressions, genocide, homicides, rapings and many other horrible things that man can do. None of these things I would want my girls (wife and daughter) to experience. I can't stand the idea that I won't be able to keep my girls safe, that in occupation there is a high possibility that I just won't be able to protect them. This drives me nuts, I'll be honest. I just can't stand to imagine someone doing any kind of harm to my little girl, I can't bear the idea.
Around 2 or 3 years ago when we first started to really think about moving to live abroad our situations was simpler than it is now - I didn't have the good job I have now, our financial situation was tougher, we didn't have a daughter, we were a bit younger, etc, so the decision of moving seemed more easy, as we thought that the worst case would be us just loosing couple of years of our life (not growing as a family and in our careers, etc). Now the situation has changed quite substantially - I have a good job with realistically foreseeable promotions, bought a motorcycle and a nicer car for our family, have invested some money in upgrading our house, which we could reconstruct or demolish and build a new one on our land in the future, we have a daughter now, etc... everything seems to be going better than it did a few years ago. If at that time because of our government policy and many other things we didn't think that it would be possible to live a nice life here (earn money so we could also travel and enjoy many other things as well, build our own house, etc) now it seems for possible, so the idea that we need to move to achieve these goals is not that strong anymore.
At this point in time, we've decided that we need to make the decision about what we want for our family. Are we staying in Latvia or are we moving, and if so, then where, how and when? Because of the "success" in life that we've had in few past years, it has become a really difficult decision to make. On one hand, we both think that because of the possible safety concerns for this country (probable occupation somewhere in future) we should move, as nothing is more important than our safety. On the other hand, it would be much easier to stay and evolve, as we're quite set here, we have a house, land, jobs, car, motorcycle, few friends, families, etc, and I personally feel that we could live quite well (financially) in Latvia as well. Although we both agree that is something would happen, we would leave everything behind to flee and be safe. So for this reason, and the possibility of safety issues in our country we're again uncertain cause we wouldn't want to work hard and then need to leave it all behind especially because we knew it could happen.
So here it is - the main question - what would you do if you were in a similar situation? Would you leave everything you have now and risk moving abroad to a safer country with hopes to live a better life there? Or would you stay where you are hoping nothing bad will happen, knowing there will always be risk/doubts and you'll probably never be really safe because of your geographical location?
P.S. I hope you've read through all this and will share your view on the situation. I know it's a lot to take in and I've tried my best to manage the post not spending an entire day rewriting it to perfection, so I hope you get the idea. The only thing I hope for is that some of you will share your thoughts and answer the questions so that I can use the information gathered to mindstorm about this, because I know that no one else will make the decision for me, so I just wanted to hear some opinions.
Thanks for everyrhing, stay safe!
This is probably not going to be a usual kind of thread for this forums, but as I didn't know a better place to find people who are into guns/survival etc. I decided to post this thread here. This thread is not going to be about guns or survival in particular, but rather about me taking a decision about what should I do to keep my family safe, or in other words - I'm hoping you can discuss the subject with me so that I can make the decision easier.
So here is my story.
I'm 27 years old, I have a wife (she's my age) and a 10 months old daughter. We live in Latvia, Riga (Baltic States - eastern/northern Europe). I've recently graduated from university (bachelors in civil engineering) and I'm currently working as a structural engineer in one of the best design offices in Latvia. In a month I'll start my masters' studies, which I intend to finish in 5 or 10 months (it depends). My wife has received her bachelor degree in materials science 5 years ago. Now she's on paid leave (because of our daughter) until August 2018, when she'll return to her job, or possibly some other job. Our daughter will be 10 months old in a week, and she'll start attending local kinder garden in September 2018.
As many of you may know (or may not know) Russia occupied Crimea a few years ago and has backed separatists in eastern Ukraine since. This, of course, has raised a certain amount of distress in Latvians, as historically we have been subjected to an occupation more than once.
After occupation of Crimea, I started to realize that hybrid warfare could be possible in Latvia as we - this was when I started to think that possibly I should attain a CCW license and get a handgun, which I did, struggling through many of problems I had to face to attain the license (I have another topic where there is more info on this, although I haven't had time to update any info on my progress on anything, because there has been none as I seriously lack free time). Somewhere at the same time, we started to think that we would want to relocate to, ideally, the US, or some other great country, which is safe and has a lot of opportunities to evolve in business and life in general and to raise our family in that country. As this is not as easy as getting in the car and driving where we want, we decided to postpone this decision until I graduate.
Now, since our daughter was born, I couldn't help but wonder about my wives and daughters safety here in Latvia in case something would happen, either hybrid warfare or conventional. Some of you may know that there are certain views on the matter concerning Russia's interest in Baltic states, and for me, some of the views are really alarming. Anyway, I'm sure that if something serious were to happen we would be occupied and if NATO or someone else would respond Latvia wouldn't be anything but a battlefield, so in any such scenario, there's nothing good for Latvians what so ever. If there's something to learn from occupation all over the history, it is the repressions, genocide, homicides, rapings and many other horrible things that man can do. None of these things I would want my girls (wife and daughter) to experience. I can't stand the idea that I won't be able to keep my girls safe, that in occupation there is a high possibility that I just won't be able to protect them. This drives me nuts, I'll be honest. I just can't stand to imagine someone doing any kind of harm to my little girl, I can't bear the idea.
Around 2 or 3 years ago when we first started to really think about moving to live abroad our situations was simpler than it is now - I didn't have the good job I have now, our financial situation was tougher, we didn't have a daughter, we were a bit younger, etc, so the decision of moving seemed more easy, as we thought that the worst case would be us just loosing couple of years of our life (not growing as a family and in our careers, etc). Now the situation has changed quite substantially - I have a good job with realistically foreseeable promotions, bought a motorcycle and a nicer car for our family, have invested some money in upgrading our house, which we could reconstruct or demolish and build a new one on our land in the future, we have a daughter now, etc... everything seems to be going better than it did a few years ago. If at that time because of our government policy and many other things we didn't think that it would be possible to live a nice life here (earn money so we could also travel and enjoy many other things as well, build our own house, etc) now it seems for possible, so the idea that we need to move to achieve these goals is not that strong anymore.
At this point in time, we've decided that we need to make the decision about what we want for our family. Are we staying in Latvia or are we moving, and if so, then where, how and when? Because of the "success" in life that we've had in few past years, it has become a really difficult decision to make. On one hand, we both think that because of the possible safety concerns for this country (probable occupation somewhere in future) we should move, as nothing is more important than our safety. On the other hand, it would be much easier to stay and evolve, as we're quite set here, we have a house, land, jobs, car, motorcycle, few friends, families, etc, and I personally feel that we could live quite well (financially) in Latvia as well. Although we both agree that is something would happen, we would leave everything behind to flee and be safe. So for this reason, and the possibility of safety issues in our country we're again uncertain cause we wouldn't want to work hard and then need to leave it all behind especially because we knew it could happen.
So here it is - the main question - what would you do if you were in a similar situation? Would you leave everything you have now and risk moving abroad to a safer country with hopes to live a better life there? Or would you stay where you are hoping nothing bad will happen, knowing there will always be risk/doubts and you'll probably never be really safe because of your geographical location?
P.S. I hope you've read through all this and will share your view on the situation. I know it's a lot to take in and I've tried my best to manage the post not spending an entire day rewriting it to perfection, so I hope you get the idea. The only thing I hope for is that some of you will share your thoughts and answer the questions so that I can use the information gathered to mindstorm about this, because I know that no one else will make the decision for me, so I just wanted to hear some opinions.
Thanks for everyrhing, stay safe!