Lifestyle trumps wealth in Latvia

RIGA - Despite geographic locations at the opposite ends of the earth, Latvians and Australians have been finding their way to each other’s countries for decades. To celebrate Australia’s 194th official Australia Day, which takes place Jan. 26, The Baltic Times profiles three Australians who this year will be celebrating their national holiday in Riga’s Old Town.
Do not be fooled by the Old Town bar with name that may otherwise hint at a bar full of Australia’s closest neighbors and rivals, New Zealanders: This evening, Kiwi Bar in the heart of Riga’s Old Town will be full of “Aussies” who will use the bar as the meeting point for their annual Australia Day celebrations.

Kiwi Bar has now become the unofficial Jan. 26 meeting point for Latvian-based Australians who love nothing more than to celebrate their national day with a cold beer, bbq and 1 lats (1.40 euros) meat pies.
Admittedly, in recent times the Australian ex-pat community in Latvia has been dwindling as the realities of the economic recession that Latvia is attempting to drag itself out of continue to hang around like a bad hangover, whilst at the other end of the scale Australia is experiencing an extended period of almost unrivaled economic prosperity, with the Australian dollar recently hitting record highs against both the greenback and euro.

Adding to this, it has been well-documented in the media over the past 18 months that it is not just ex-pat numbers that are dwindling in the Baltic country, but also the number of Latvian citizens who themselves are packing up and shifting off in record numbers to search for better economic prosperity abroad.
With this in mind, it is often difficult for the average Latvian to understand what attraction their country holds for foreigners – particularly from a country such as Australia, which is seen as something of an exotic location and dream destination for so many here – when they themselves struggle to find attractive incentives to remain.

Three Australians that have found their way to Latvia for different reasons and opted to weather out the current financial gloom are Martin Quinn, Uldis Bruns and Frank Carey. Whilst they all had different reasons to come here in the first place, all three have remained living here for similar reasons, and money does not factor into the equation.
For Quinn, a second-generation Australian whose mother’s parents were part of a mass-migration to Australia during Latvia’s brief period under Nazi rule during WWII, coming to Latvia has given him a better understanding of his heritage, which he became curious about in his teens.

Beginning to learn the language, attending Latvian School on Saturday mornings and traveling to Latvian summer camps in his teens, Quinn made his first journey to Latvia as a 16-year-old, where his enthusiasm for the country continued to grow to the point where the now 24-year-old has been living in Latvia full-time for almost two years.
Despite initially struggling to find work, amongst other difficulties, Quinn opted to stick it out, and now works as a financial journalist for a Swiss-based bank.

“Australia is a pretty lucky country – if you are clever enough and work hard enough there is a pre-ordained path for everybody,” Quinn explained to the The Baltic Times, adding, “you study, get good grades, go to university, get a job and work your way up the ladder. At the end of it you have a wife, kids, a home and a comfortable life.”
But for the time being, the pre-laid path to success that potentially awaits him back home has been put on hold. “For a lot of people in Australia that [the pre-ordained path] is good, but it lacks a certain excitement. Here, job security and quality of life may not be as high for most people, but things can just fall into your lap out of nowhere,” believes Quinn, who values the lifestyle he has been presented with here.

“In Australia, unless you live right in the middle of the city, you don’t have the lifestyle where you just pop out the door and walk everywhere and happen to bump into people in the street. It happens here every day and it is exciting.”
Quinn has also fitted into the sporting environment, playing rugby for local club Livonia.
“Playing rugby here and being able to go overseas and play tournaments is a big thing for me. Given that Australia is so remote... that excitement where you can just get on a plane and go to another country is appealing.”
If that is a driving factor, then surely it would have been easier for the part-Welsh Quinn to establish himself in London, where the incomes are significantly better and is the more traditional base for Australian and New Zealand citizens fresh out of university and eager to travel.

However Quinn admits there is more to it. “Maybe because it [Latvia] is not so well known, and some people see it as a bit of a backwater, that you just realize it is so unique here, and I am sure there are places similar, but having the language, cultural and family connections makes it great to live and experience everything here.”
As much as Quinn is enjoying the lifestyle now, he does admit that one day a return to Australia with his Latvian-born girlfriend Anita will likely be on the cards. “Maybe this current excitement I have will fade when I get older, and I might not appreciate it as much and look for the safety and security that Australia will always be able to provide me with, but at the moment while I am young it’s a great place to live.”

Bruns is another whose strong family ties with Latvia acted as an enticing force in bringing the former age-grade Australian basketball representative back to Latvia. Bruns’ parents were both child refugees during the Second World War, moving across Europe with their respective families, spending five years in the displaced persons camps in Germany before being given an offer to go to Australia. It was there that they met at a function and got married.
One of four children, Bruns grew up speaking Latvian at home in Adelaide and attending Latvian school on Saturdays, which would have regular attendances of close to 100 children at that time.

Bruns’ first trip to Latvia came in 1990 as a member of a goodwill basketball team made up of Australian-Latvians. Despite being thumped in the tournament by professional club VEF Riga, Bruns knew then that he would one day be back in Latvia.

Working as a lawyer, Bruns visited Latvia every four years during his holidays before eventually quitting his job to move here for a year. “I enjoyed living in Riga, but I kept planning to go home the next year. Each year I extended it for another year, and another year, and now it is coming up to seven years here,” Bruns claimed, joking that, “it’s a place where I don’t need to spell my name and surname every time I introduce myself!”

Bruns’ mother and three siblings have all been to Latvia on various occasions, but it is only he who has remained living in the Baltic State. “I find my life more fulfilling and interesting here. I find I am really living. In Australia you can go to work and you exist. Here you actually live,” he said, adding, “Adelaide is a city of one million people and you are just sitting behind the wheel of your car and you are isolated and the streets are empty. Everyone is in their house watching television, but here people are in the streets and in cafes and out communicating. There’s stuff happening all the time.”

Being a lawyer in Australia could perhaps offer better financial rewards for Bruns, who now works as a translator, but it is not a driving force in his decision-making. “I am not motivated by money. My measurement of life is to be doing stuff that interests me and gives me quality of life,” Bruns explains, also speaking for others in the ex-pat community saying, “I don’t think there would be too many people from the ex-pat community who have come back here to make money. I look around and most of them are not making big money, but they all say, ‘I could make so much more money if I was back in Canada, America or Australia, but my life here is so much richer and more interesting culturally and socially.’”

Stepping off the plane in Riga at Easter time in 2000 for his first taste of the former Soviet Union, Carey claims to have fallen in love with Latvia the moment his feet hit the tarmac, despite having no biological connection to the country.
After his sojourn, which included trips to – at the time – one of the city’s very few clubs, the Black Cat (Melnais Kakis), Carey went back to London, England where he was at the time based, but he kept revisiting Latvia, eventually moving here for good in 2004.

“London turned into a rat-race and I continued to return here,” Carey explained, “I found Riga the most interesting place I had been in Europe. I felt content here.”
Starting off working in a backpackers hostel in the center of the central market for a free bed and nothing more than pocket money, Carey worked from the ground up, developing a successful business resume which now sees him part-owning, amongst other things, Kiwi Bar.
“I was a bit down on my luck, working at the backpackers in the market for a couple of hundred pounds a month and a bed, but from there I have kicked on,” said Carey, adding, “I kept at it and maybe because it is different to home, it gave me more enjoyment to try and work harder. It made me appreciate it more and I got bigger rewards, as I had worked harder.”

Despite the current prosperity being experienced back in Australia, Carey, like Quinn and Bruns, has no intention of returning home. “I have no temptation to go home because I don’t work for the money, I work for the enjoyment. You are never bored here. There is always something happening 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Regardless of how immersed in the Latvian culture the trio are, none of them forget where they come from, and come this evening, Quinn, Bruns and Carey will all be down at Kiwi Bar with the rest of the Australian ex-pat contingent, toasting their motherland and singing about vegemite sandwiches until the early, or perhaps more correctly, the late hours of Friday morning.