Riga, Latvia – Sindija Brackowska is 18 years old and dreams of becoming a hair stylist or dance teacher. She studies at the Riga Technical School of Tourism and Creative Industry, a vocational school focused on hospitality, tourism and fashion.
“I like girly things,” the tall Latvian tells me.
On this March morning, about two dozen girls between the ages of 16 and 18 are sitting in class with Brackowska. Some girls look shy. Others are all over the place with teenage study boredom.
The room could be almost anywhere in Europe – if there weren’t rifles on the desk.
They are ugly, black and weigh more than 6 pounds. Made by American manufacturer Crosman, model SBR, air rifles resemble the US Army’s M4 assault rifle and fire steel BBs. To the untrained eye, they look like the real thing.
“I’m a little nervous,” Brakowska tells me, before picking up a weapon for the first time. What does she think about her national defense class? “I think it makes sense,” she says.
In many European countries, rifles in the classroom would become a scandal. For example, in my home country, Germany, the influential Education and Science Workers’ Union strongly opposes any kind of military access to schools, even viewing visits by so-called “youth officers” with suspicion, as they are seen as a subtle form of recruitment.
In Latvia, by contrast, there is no such resistance, and weapons training has become part of the lesson plan, even for budding hair stylists and dance teachers.
The country is located on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Russia to the east and Belarus to the southeast. Along with its neighbors Estonia and Lithuania, Latvia spent decades inside the Soviet Union. This is NATO’s northeastern border, and allied forces are deployed throughout the area; It now hosts a Canadian-led multinational brigade, and US forces operate in the country as part of the coalition’s deterrent posture.
Anyone old enough to remember the Soviet years here doesn’t need a lecture on what foreign domination feels like. Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 and more than four years of war, the much smaller Baltic states have every reason to wonder whether they could be next. That’s why Moscow’s threats are taken seriously, and that’s why the Baltics are preparing for the possibility of another Russian aggressive war. While much of the world is currently focused on Iran, the eyes of the Baltics are on Moscow.
The fragility of the Baltics led them early and eagerly to join NATO, and these three countries have been among the alliance’s most committed members ever since. But they also know that NATO is under strain, that the United States’ commitment to its allies has been questioned, and that in the event of a Russian attack, they would have to be prepared, like Ukraine, to defend themselves.
All three European countries have military conscription. Service is compulsory for young men in Latvia, but not across the board: if too few volunteers come forward, the remaining recruits are selected by lottery. Currently, around 400 youth are trained in this manner every year, while around 1,300 volunteer.
Furthermore, both Latvia and Estonia have introduced a compulsory “national defense education” for secondary school students. The curriculum includes military history, marching and drilling, land navigation, first aid, crisis response, and weapons handling. Students who want more can spend part of the summer at camp in uniform.
Of the three counties, Latvia leads the way in mandating military training for high school students. In Estonia, the compulsory classroom curriculum is 35 hours. In Latvia, it runs 112 hours over two years.
“The purpose is not to train soldiers, but to develop more responsible citizens,” Colonel Walts Abolins told me during a break in a school class. The 53-year-old official oversees the national programme. “We want to take away the fear that many young people and their parents have when they encounter anything military.”
Training is not without mishaps for students Study of cosmetology. A student breaks a carefully polished nail while pulling back the charging handle. She screams and runs outside. Another struggles with her magazine, which keeps getting caught. Eventually she starts crying. A female instructor puts her hand on his shoulder and leads him outside.
Five minutes later, both of them came back. The other student again picks up his unarmed rifle. This time the magazine makes it to the list in the first attempt itself. One stroke, and that’s it. A smile brightens on his face.
Nearby, students in the second year of the course are allowed to fire loaded BB guns. For this, they simply lie down on the grass near the main entrance of the school. An instructor marks the firing area with red and white tape. Paper targets lean against the wall; Sheets of Styrofoam serve as a backstop. In the background, Riga’s Soviet-era apartment blocks loom into the sky.
There is an atmosphere of improvisation at the shooting range, but the rules are enforced with remarkable strictness. The weapons always lie in one place, and an order is given before each movement. No one shoots without orders.
When students talk to me, they do so quietly. No surprise: Uniformed instructors perform faster than regular teachers. Most impressive is the bearded chief instructor, whose broad back almost fills the door frame.
“Stop blabbering!” Andris Skānis shouts in Latvian when a group of girls wanders off to attention for a moment. The entire class is shocked.
But humor softens the rough edges. After a young female instructor and one of Scannis’ coworkers explain the safety rules, the 44-year-old soldier walks into class. He shows each student how to hold an unarmed rifle so that the BB can later fire at the target. He keeps making jokes while moving from one desk to another.
“You can’t just teach defense in theory,” Scannis explained to me. “You have to do this again and again.”
But, he says, without the cruelty of the Soviet era.
“Our army today is completely different from what it was under Soviet rule. It is not.” dadovshchina” The term literally means “rule of the grandfathers” and refers to the severe bullying of recruits by older soldiers, a system that intimidated generations of youth in Soviet barracks and still haunts the Russian army.
In Latvia, this difference matters. The country declared independence after World War I, but lost it again in the cataclysmic events of the 20th century: occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, then by Nazi Germany, and then again by the Soviets. This was followed by repression and decades of forced Russification.
Obviously, the determination to never again be at the mercy of any external power now lies at the core of the country’s defense education. It’s not just about rifles and drills. It is about telling Latvia’s story in clearly patriotic terms and preparing future generations to defend a state that was lost almost at its birth.
Today, while about a quarter of the population is ethnically Russian, and Russian speakers are still predominant in Riga and the east, the school program has another purpose: to tie this large minority more closely to the state – starting with youth who are perceived as less entrenched in the narratives shaped by Russian propaganda.
“Our goal is not necessarily to change minds overnight,” Abolins tells me. “We can’t turn them from red to blue, but we can encourage critical thinking. It could mean teens asking new questions at the dinner table at home.”
Regular teachers do not participate in Latvia’s defense classes. “This allows us to ensure that certain important points in our history are taught as facts,” Abolik says. “They’re not open to the teacher’s explanations.”
In this logic, civilian instructors who may openly or subtly question patriotic goals are considered an obstacle.
Abolins says there was debate in Latvia about the program. But it was “surprisingly quiet”. He argues that the important thing was that the government introduced it gradually. The first courses began in 2018 in 13 schools, all on a voluntary basis. More schools joined each year. By the time the course became mandatory on September 1, 2024, most people were already attending. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine did the rest.
Āboliņš is widely built in the same manner as Scanis. The two soldiers served together in Afghanistan, and the local training chief calls his boss “father” with obvious respect. The colonel has two children. He says his 18-year-old daughter is currently participating in the National Defense Program and she loves it. “I feel sorry for his coaches. They know I’ve heard about his performance.”
Scannis also has two children, both daughters. “The 4-year-old loves my work, especially the uniforms.” Then he stops. And elder daughter? “My 19-year-old son is a pacifist.” His smile disappears. “She remembers my deployment to Afghanistan. She was a little girl then. For her, me being a soldier meant being away from her.”
How does a country in defense mode deal with youth who do not want to touch weapons? “We don’t pressure anyone,” says Scannis. If someone is a convinced pacifist or says their religion forbids it, the instructor asks for a presentation in class instead. At least in peacetime.
“If there is a war in Latvia, everyone has to be ready,” says Skānis. “Some people say they will fly, but no planes will fly now.”
That said, pacifism is much less prevalent in Latvia than elsewhere in the EU. Of all factions, the willingness to fight for one’s country is lower in Western Europe and markedly higher in the states living in Russia’s shadow.
The threat to Latvia lies across the border. The country shares a 176-mile border with Russia and a 107-mile border with Belarus, a country within Russia’s sphere of influence that served as a staging ground for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
For Monica Lazdina, the female instructor of the course, the war in Ukraine was also a turning point. She quit her job in finance and joined the National Guard of Latvia. After 72 hours of teacher training, the 32-year-old mother of two now teaches national defence. In the classroom, the slight woman with a blonde ponytail is firm but calm – a contrast to Scannis and his thundering bass voice.
“I try not to think too much about the possibility of war,” Lazdina tells me. She says that if there was a war in Latvia, her first step would be to try to get her children out of the country. And then she will come back. “I will stay and fight.”
