Can Latvians speak Russian?

Russian is a mother tongue of about 30\% of Latvian population, unevenly distributed (higher in Riga and south-east, close to 0 in most small towns and rural areas). Of the other 70\% (ethnic Latvians), most speak at least some Russian, and some speak very good Russian.

Why do some Latvians speak Russian?

The number of native Russian speakers increased sharply after the Soviet re-occupation in 1944 to fill the gaps in the workforce created by World War II, mass deportations, execution and emigration. New, previously virtually unknown groups such as Russian speaking Ukrainians were also introduced.

Does Russia control Latvia?

Relations since 1991 In 1991, Latvia regained independence from the USSR through the Latvian independence and democracy poll, 1991. In 2007, the border treaty between the two states was ratified after Latvia dropped a claim for a small pre-World War II territory that’s currently part of modern Russia.

How many Russian speakers are in Latvia?

Results acquired in 2017 show that 61.3 \% of the country’s population spoke Latvian at home, while the share of population speaking Russian accounted for 37.7 \%….Latvian is mother tongue of 60.8 \% of the population of Latvia.

	2000 Population and Housing Census data	2017 External Migration Survey results
Russian	37.5	36.0
Other	4.3	3.2

What do Latvian speak?

Latvian
Latvia/Official languages

Why were Latvians sent to Siberia?

In a short period of time, around 100,000 Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians were sent to Siberia in cattle trucks to scratch a living from the permafrost in labor camps. Some died on the way, some died as the years passed – and a few made it home.

Are Lithuanians and Latvians Slavic?

The Balts or Baltic people (Lithuanian: baltai, Latvian: balti) are an ethno-linguistic group of people who speak the Baltic languages of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages….Balts.

Total population
Latvia	1,188,000
Languages
Baltic languages
Religion

What percentage of Latvians are Russian?

In the beginning of 2017, the ethnic distribution of Latvia’s population was 62 \% Latvians, 25.4 \% Russians, 3.3 \% Belorussians, 2.2 \% Ukrainians, 2.1 \% Poles, 5\% other ethnicities (Lithuanians, Jews, Roma, Germans, Estonians, Tatars, and others).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxiG5WFjPKM