| Latvia Page |
| Panoramic of Riga, Latvia from St. Peters Church steeple |
| Latvia has a population of 2 million and is 1/4 the size of Colorado. The country first got it's independence in 1918. That lasted until 1939 when the Hitler and Stalin divided the Baltic countries. The Soviet Union took over this small country with the occupation lasting until 1990. Latvia is a member of the EU and has a flat tax of 26% for Social Security, Medical care and Income taxes. It also has a VAT tax of 22%. Latvia has a per capita income of $18,000 a year. |
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| Read about how this small country lost it's freedom to the Soviets and what that means. It includes nationalizing farmland, banks and many other private businesses. It includes sending an estimated 119,000 Latvians to prison in the Gulags of Russia. |
| The following video is of an Estonian woman telling about how her family was affected by the Soviet Occupation. She tells about how her uncles hid in the forest for years because of fear of being sent to the Gulag (Soviet Prisons). She tells about the thousands of families broken up. She tells of how her family survived by growing all their own food but had to turn over all their machinery and work animals to the Soviets. She tells about those who did not cooperate and were sent off to the Gulags. Also, see the monument built to commemorate those who were sent off to the Gulag under the Lithuania Page and the "Hill of Crosses". |
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