#13 The last of the Latvians 🇱🇻
What happens when an ethnicity disappears? Also, what is an ethnicity?
This week’s newsletter is a rather lengthy exploration of a very small country. By looking at Latvia’s past and future, I’m trying to understand some trends that will affect us all.
I was at a meeting last week in Latvia’s capital, Riga, convened by the OECD to discuss new approaches to provide legal advice to vulnerable communities. As I listened to a representative from Peru’s Ministry of Justice describe their efforts to provide legal advice to indigenous communities, I began to think about the very nature of the law. About how it has supplanted religion‘s role in dictating the rules of life. How, allegedly, we are supposed to all follow the same rules. How, allegedly, we’re all subject to the same punishments when we break them. But most of all, how far removed humanity remains from equal justice for all.
“History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme”
I arrived to Latvia a day late after missing my connecting flight in Frankfurt. As soon as I checked in to my hotel room, I splashed water on my face and set out walking through the fall foliage to the meeting venue. All along the streets, there were signs of protests against Russia and solidarity with Ukraine.
It was extraordinary to arrive to Latvia the same day that Putin announced sham referendums in the occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine. Latvians, after all, have seen this trick before; like a bad Hollywood remake, it’s the same script with new actors:
82 years ago, in June 1940, Soviet troops invaded Latvia and demanded that a pro-Soviet government replace the independent Latvian government. The U.S., meanwhile, was too worried about risking their Soviet alliance against Nazi Germany to do anything about it.
A month later, the Soviet Union announced sham elections. Only candidates from the pro-Soviet party were allowed to run for the so-called “People’s Parliament.” Any other candidate was deported, and many were executed. Election results were announced in Moscow 12 hours before the polls closed with the “official” turnout rate at 97.6%.
Full Soviet occupation of Latvia took place over just six weeks and continued until 1991. By comparison, Ukraine’s unlikely resistance and Zelensky’s improbable survival is all the more remarkable.
The upside of getting stranded with a broken bike
After the stifled yawns during the concluding panel, I was reminded of how much lawyers like (need?) to drink. We gathered at a nearby bar for some cocktails and five drinks in, these bureaucrats and lawyers developed personalities as if they were Chia Pets sprinkled with Miracle Grow. I ended up having more fun than I expected.
I woke up the next morning with a parched mouth from the martinis. Since this was my first visit to Latvia, I decided to stick around for a weekend of cycling and tourism. When it comes to cycling, Latvia isn’t exactly France or Denmark. You have to work a little harder to discover the good stuff, but it’s out there waiting to be found. Latvia is such a small country that I considered biking to the Lithuanian border just for the hell of it. But as I studied the cycling map on Strava and asked the local bike mechanics for their recommendations, I opted for some less trafficked roads through the countryside.
That turned out to be a mistake (or so I thought). Something important is missing in the photo above: my chain, which broke as I was climbing up a small hill with as much power as I could muster until it snapped and I nearly fell over. I was stranded on the side of a rural road with only one or two cars passing every 15 minutes or so. The first 10 cars to pass were BMWs, Volvos and Audis — a sign of Latvia’s growing economy. None of the drivers even considered stopping to help despite my frantic waving.
Only an hour later did someone finally pull over: a 60-something contractor in a dirty utility van. His wife didn’t speak a word of English and he spoke maybe 100. But he managed to communicate that he was a cyclist in the 1980s, “back in the Soviet times.” They went out of their way to drive me 15 miles to the train station. I pulled out my Google Translate app to eavesdrop on their conversation and discovered that he was narrating his glory days as a cyclist. When I told him that the last train to Riga would depart in just 15 minutes, he put the pedal to the metal and drove that old van like a Porche. At the train station, he insisted on buying my train ticket and carrying my bike. “How is this so light?” he asked. It was the first time I saw him smile. We shook hands with the kind of meaningful eye contact that says ‘we could be friends.’ In the end, the broken chain made for a much better day than if I had simply cycled back to Riga with my usual playlists and podcasts.
One fourth of Oregon
I have been describing Latvia as if it were an entire country, which it is of course, but also its landmass is one fourth the size of Oregon and its population is on par with Phoenix. Half of those 1.8 million people live in the capital city, Riga. The population has been shrinking ever since Latvia gained independence in 1991. Based on current fertility rates, they are projected to have fewer than one million people in the country by the end of the century. (Consider Ethiopia’s population by comparison, which is 123 million today and projected to be more than 320 million by the end of the century.)
In an attempt to reverse the trend, Latvia pays parents 500 euros to have children. The government will cover a year’s salary of parental leave. Parents then receive a monthly allowance of 170 euros to whoever provides childcare for the first two years of the baby’s life. And the government will pay parents 12 euros per month per child until they turn 18. The new incentives for parents have slowed the decreasing fertility rate, but it’s still not nearly at replacement rate. Every day 16 Latvians die and only 9 are born. Unless they let in 7 immigrants every day, their population will continue to decrease.
Savory or Sweet? Yes.
Latvian cuisine was delicious and unpredictable. I was reminded of Tyler Cowen’s lament that so many national cuisine’s followed the French custom of needlessly segregating savory and sweet, saving the latter for dessert only. Other countries, including Iran, India, Mexico, Georgia (and Latvia!), mix savory, spicy, and sweet to make for more interesting dishes. I was skeptical of a cold lemon merengue surrounded by warm, spicy lentils, but my god, what a combo. And for about the price of a Chipotle burrito.
What is a Latvian?
The last train to Riga still got me back in time to visit the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia before it closed. I only had an hour to rush through and yet I was surprised by how much it affected me. Latvia has been controlled by Swedes, Germans, or Russians for the past 500 years. For a meager 22 years from 1918 - 1940, they gained true independence and started the work of building a nation until the Soviet Union invaded. Finally, in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union, they gained true independence while becoming a member state of NATO and the EU.
Latvia’s population has fluctuated over the past 120 years from 2 million in 1897 to 2.7 million in 1989 to 1.85 million today. The number of ethnic Latvians has declined ever since 1970 and it’s hard to say if they will continue to exist at all. Does that matter? And also, what is an ethnic Latvian? According to the official census, it’s however they want to identify. According to their DNA, they are essentially the same as ethnic Lithuanians. Walking around Riga’s bustling nightlife with my martini buzz, I certainly couldn’t tell who was ethnically Latvian, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, or Polish. They all looked to be having a very good time.
Well, not everyone. Recently arrived Asian immigrants were riding bikes and scooters across town to deliver food while everyone else was having a good time. In 2007, two Somali refugees were attacked in by skinheads in Riga and the US State Department issued an official condemnation after the police stopped pursuing the investigation.
Over the past few years, Latvia has become a popular destination for Indians wanting to migrate to the EU. YouTube is full of Tamil and Hindi-language videos with guidance for Indians wanting to work in Latvia. By investing 90,000 euros in a Latvian business, they gain a five-year residency permit, which can be renewed and they can apply for Latvian citizenship after nine years.
Latvia is hedging its bets by paying parents to have children while inviting immigrants who are willing to invest in the economy. Sounds sensible to me.
On my last day in Riga, I ate at a South Indian restaurant while a mechanic next door worked on my bike. It was some of the best dosa and curry I’ve had outside of India. The menu also had a few Latvian dishes and some experimental attempts at fusion cuisine. The restaurant was packed with students. And while the Indians and Latvians were mostly segregated, a couple of tables were mixed. They spoke a mix of English and Latvian. They pulled out their phones when the conversation died down. They enjoyed their meals. They convinced me that Latvia and Latvians have a bright future, however they choose to identify in the future.
A useful tool
Latvian is spoke by fewer than two million people. It doesn’t get close to the top 100 most spoken languages. Even Hungarian, which ranks number 78, has six times as many speakers. And yet still Google Translate is able to magically translate every word. I used the microphone function to eavesdrop on conversations. I typed out message and then pressed play for it to speak it in Latvian for me. And I used the camera function to read menus and museum displays. I have been using Google Translate for over 15 years now and it still feels magical.
Kudos
Kudos to 37-year-old Eliud Kipchoge for an incredible, record-breaking time at the Berlin Marathon. And kudos to 37-year-old Keira D’Amato who finished sixth. I love athletes push the age limit of prime performance beyond what anyone thought was possible. 42-year-old Alejandro Valverde will end his 20-year punishing cycling career alongside Vincenzo Nibali in Italy on October 8.
Nostalgia podcast
Finally, over at the 12 Inquiries podcast, Luis posted our latest episode “where we explore our nostalgia for technology that has come, gone, or sometimes just evolved to something else entirely.”
Have a great week!
David