January(Janvāris)

During the winter of 1991 in Riga, 18-year old Jazis’s life is fraught with complications. Even though Latvian national independence has been restored, the Soviet Army is still very much present in the country and Jazis is at risk of being conscripted and sent to fight in Afghanistan. In January, when the Soviet special services and military units attempt to overthrow the newly independent government, people start building barricades around strategically important buildings, and Jazis finds himself at the centre of events. Jazis has never taken interest in politics. He is preoccupied with “more important” things – bohemia, girls, and films. He does not actively participate in the barricades but is rather pulled into this festival of life and death by circumstance. There is another issue – unbeknownst to him, Jazis might have become a father. Or maybe not. Uncertainty is what most precisely defines public consciousness in the early 1990s in Latvia.