The Baltics - Tallinn & Riga

(Source: http://euroheritage.net/warsawpact.jpg - shading of city names and travel route added)

Before this trip I knew very little about the Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - except their place on the map and their history of domination by larger and stronger neighbors. "The Baltics" are located on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. On this map they appear just to the right of center. The heavy black lines show our route up to our arrival in Tallinn. The Soviet Union is the area shaded red. The internal lines within the Soviet map mark borders between "Soviet Socialist Republics," each of which is now an independent country. The nations shaded blue were then part of the Warsaw Pact, a political and military alliance of nations aligned with the USSR.

The Baltics became part of the Russian Empire in the 18th century. Before that these countries were dominated, to varying degrees and at different times, by Danes, Germans, Swedes and Poles. The historical peoples of the three Baltic countries, however, are ethnically and culturally distinctive from each of these occupiers, and from each other. 

Estonians are a Nordic (but not Scandinavian) people, closely related to Finns in language and culture. Latvians and Lithuanians are Baltic peoples, or "Balts," and they share an ethnic and cultural heritage that is distinct from Estonians and their other neighbors. The Latvian and Lithuanian languages are related - they are the only modern languages in their language group. Estonia and Latvia were predominately Lutheran before their incorporation into the Soviet Union, and Lithuania was predominately Roman Catholic.

Despite the centuries of foreign rule, these ancient peoples made up the great majority of the population in each of their countries before the Second World War. In Estonia and Lithuania, the figure was close to 90%. More than 75% of the people living in Latvia were ethnic Latvians. A relatively small population of ethnic Russians lived in each of the Baltic countries - mostly in the larger cities and in the rural areas bordering Russia itself. In language, religion and culture, Russians shared little in common with Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.