As of February 1, 2025, pensions in Belarus were increased by an average of 10%, reaching about 930 rubles (approximately €260). Following this news, on February 7, the BelTA news agency aired an interview with Roman Samul, a Latvian citizen who fled to Belarus for political reasons (in 2023, the Latvian Prosecutor’s Office charged him with espionage on behalf of Russia). He described how expensive public transportation can be for Latvian pensioners:
"I’m not even going to get into how much our public transport costs. And subsidies for pensioners aren’t really supported anymore, so they pay full price. You can imagine the situation: sometimes an elderly grandmother needs to go out to collect her pension because she can’t use online banking, so at least she can receive that money at the post office."
Public transportation in Latvia is indeed more expensive than in Belarus. For example, in Riga, a 90-minute ticket costs €1.5. However, pensioners are exempt from it.
Senior citizens registered in the Latvian capital are eligible for free use of public transportation.
According to Riga City Council regulations, other categories eligible for free use of public transportation include schoolchildren, people with disabilities, those who have faced repression or participated in the national resistance, Chernobyl disaster cleanup workers, and Ukrainian citizens unable to return home because of the war. Teachers, technical staff at educational institutions, medical personnel, childcare providers, and nannies all have a 50% discount. Working senior citizens also enjoy a 50% discount on monthly passes for public transport.
In other Latvian cities, pensioners are also entitled to discounted public transportation. For instance, they receive a 50% discount in Daugavpils and ride free in Rezekne.
In Belarus, pensioners pay the full fare. Chair of the Minsk City Council, Artyom Tsuran, explained at a public meeting that Belarusians already pay only about one-third of the actual cost of a public transport ride.
This isn't the first fake by Roman Samul we've covered. In early 2025, during an interview with the Belarus-1 TV channel, he stated that Latvians have children at 40–50 years of age because life in Latvia is worse than in Belarus.
