The Anglosphere is inclined to congratulate itself on its commitment to free speech, free markets, the rule of law, opposition to tyranny. And quite rightly. But a few weeks in Latvia or its Baltic neighbors might cause one to wonder if the Anglosphere is as unique in those respects as it thinks. In living memory, the Baltic peoples have risked their lives for those freedoms in ways that English-speaking people have not had to do. Today, a visitor to Riga, in Latvia, and the other Baltic capitals—Tallinn, Estonia and Vilnius, Lithuania—finds cities where freedom is assumed and exercised but valued more explicitly than in the West.
Only twenty-five years ago, Riga was an integral part of the Soviet empire, a dismal and repressed city that had very limited contact with the West. Foreign travel was restricted to Communist Party members, and people often joined the Party for just that reason. The difference in mentality between then and now is evident to the visitor in the countries that are currently most on the minds of Latvians. Russia is still thought of frequently—and its government’s antics are a worry—but it is very much “the other side of the border.” The relatively upmarket hotel in which I stayed during my recent visit had a heavily Russian clientele and the staff were perfectly civil to them, but the signage is in Latvian and English only. Young people speak English better than in some nominally Anglospheric countries such as India
