In Latvia, Dāvis Landorfs, Clavarino’s local contact person helped him to arrange a meeting with 12 adult volunteers of Latvian Home Guard, Zemessardze. Clavarino was even invited to the home of a family where a father and two sons are active members of the National Guard. «We were very well received by many Zemessardze members, they were welcoming and open, showing us around and sharing their personal stories,» said Landorfs.
«We also visited a Jaunsardzē (Latvian Youth Guard) camp,» continues Landorfs, «and it seems particularly odd to me that while Clavarino interviewed so many adult Zemessardze volunteers, he did not use any of these interviews for the story. The time he spent in the youth camp was very brief compared to the time he spent elsewhere in Latvia.»
Although Landorfs just worked for Clavarino as a fixer in Latvia, not as a co-author, he did his best to make Clavarino feel welcome. In Riga, he accommodated Clavarino in his home for free, doing so out of solidarity with fellow freelance journalists. For the rest of the trip, Clavarino stayed in guesthouses, paying himself for the accommodation.
After two weeks spent in Lithuania and one week in Latvia, Clavarino’s next stop was Estonia. Clavarino’s Estonian fixer, Marian Männi, who also works for the biggest Estonian weekly Eesti Ekspress, on 6 June 2017, contacted Estonian Home Guards’ youth organisation, Home Daughters.