My Travels in Real Estate, An Occasional Series. This is the first in this series of travels in Real Estate.
Stalin was on a rampage through the USSR making his way rather quickly to the Baltic countries of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. His killing spree had gone largely unnoticed by western countries or perhaps more accurately they turned a blind eye. As his troops approached Latvia my family was preparing a daring escape.
My family owned a lot of land in Latvia as native Latvians. They owned farmland in Zemgale, property in Riga, a paper factory and a railroad and a beautiful beach house in Jurmala, about a half hour drive from Riga, the capital of Latvia. Needless to say my family was a very successful and prosperous family of entrepreneurs which placed them on Stalin's enemy of the state list. Kill the wealthy, steal their land was his Method of Operation.
The patriarch of our family, my great grandfather gathered his wife, brothers, my grandmother and her brother, my mother and her brother on a boat and escaped to a refugee camp in Germany where they would live for the next 5 years until they could find a sponsor in the United States so they could immigrate here.
Sidebar: It was not so easy to immigrate here after WWII as it is today. You had to have a sponsor and many other things had to get done before you were allowed into the United States.
Prior to escaping out of their own country my great grandfather who had a lot of money contacted the United States state department to see if he could place his money in a U.S. bank and if it would be safe there. He was assured that this was a good move on his part. So he placed all the family's money into a bank in New York. Many Latvians placed money either in Australian, American or Swedish banks. Well, Franklin Roosevelt gave all of that money to Stalin in that stupid pact he made with Stalin so when my family arrived they discovered all of their money was gone. All the land was stolen and then the money was gone.
When Ronald Reagan pushed to tear down the Iron Curtain, Latvia was the first USSR country to claim its' dependence from the Soviet Union. The law in Latvia stated that upon independence all the land would revert back to the owners prior to communism. My mother was not alive for this, but her mother was. Her mother inherited all the land back. My grandmother died when she was 97 just a couple of years ago and thus my siblings and I inherited the land. Now we are in the process of finding parcels and such.
We did get our beach front property in Jurmala. (In Latvian, the J is pronounced as a Y) My grandmother had the deed to that property. But also when the Iron Curtain fell, crime became rampant all over Latvia and the rest of that part of the world. Russian mobs took over most of the courts and judges. Blackmail and bribing became everyday business. The is a group of mobsters who started a very lucrative criminal business of finding out what properties belonged to Latvians in the United States that are elderly, forge their wills and bear false witness to steal the land away for the second time!
My grandmother was one of the people they decided to steal from. Now my siblings and I are in a court battle in Latvia trying to beat these criminals. In Latvia, we have the burden of proof that the we are the heirs and that my grandmother did not disinherit us and give this land to these crooks. We have been defending our rights to our land for 2 years now and we will be in court for another 2 years before this is resolved in our favor. Since the crime was actually committed in the United States and we just found out where these false witnesses are my brother who is an attorney is getting charges pressed against them and that is about as much as I am liberty to discuss about the case until it is over. We are determined to set an example of these crooks so that other innocent Latvian elderly and their descendants are not taking advantage of any longer.
Here are some photos of our Beach Front property. It is called beach front in Jurmala as this is the closest you can own land by the beach.
Jurmala is a small peninsula of land that is a small strip like Palm Beach Island is here in South Florida. The Latvians are very conscious about environmental issues and thus they will not allow condos to be built along the water. There is a peaceful nature preserve that buffers the beach with many trees which are not allowed to be cut down. They understand that the trees produce clean air and thus they protect the trees. Latvian tradition celebrates the tree in folklore and such.
Our property is right behind the tree preserve and there is a walking trail right to the beach which is less than a 5 minute walk. In this area this property is worth over 2 Million USD and although the Real Estate market has cooled there somewhat this part of Jurmala will always be attractive to wealthy Russians who look to have a summer house or a place safe for their families to live while the husband goes to work in Russia and comes home on the weekends.
Jurmala is very beautiful in the summer and fall. The winters are very cold but dry and the spring is very rainy. It is on the Baltic Sea and one of my mother's fondest memories was that of searching for Amber along the beach. You will find the most detailed and colorful amber in the Baltics. I hope you enjoyed this post about Travels in Real Estate. I was inspired to write this series on Stephanie Edwards suggestion.
Copyright © by Katerina Gasset, All Rights Reserved *Stolen Once, Stolen Twice, We are entitled to get our land back*
Map Courtesy of Geography.com
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Call Nestor and Katerina Gasset for all of your referrals to West Palm Beach, Wellington, Loxahatchee, Royal Palm Beach, Lake Worth, Boynton Beach, Lantana and Manalapan, Palm Beach County Florida at 561-753-0135.
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History is coming to life right before your eyes, isn't it. Goodness, I hope this gets resolved in your favor. What a learning experience for your home-schooled chldren to wtness.
I wonder if our grandchldren will find the times that we live in as interesting as we do the World War II days.