海角大神

Elina Zelcha thought she was doing well when she moved from Baltinava, a small village near the Latvia-Russia border, to Hamburg, Germany, in 2018. But something nagged at her.

鈥淩eturning home was a call from within, a whisper in my ear,鈥� says the tattoo artist, describing the epiphany she had later. 鈥溾�榊ou were born in Latvia for a reason.鈥欌�� She decided to listen and head home to Latgale, Latvia鈥檚 easternmost province.

Latvia is hoping that other emigrants will follow Ms. Zelcha鈥檚 lead. The small Baltic nation has a severe population decline problem, one of the worst in Europe. The country has seen its population decrease more than 20% since 2000, to 1.9 million today: the combined result of a rapidly aging population, too few births, and international migration.

So the government is stepping up its efforts to bring them back. And whether it鈥檚 due to the pitch of remigration counselors, the promise of telecommuting from their motherland, or the simple lure of family and nostalgia, Latvian emigrants are coming back home.

鈥淲e need our people,鈥� says Elita Gavele, the Latvian ambassador-at-large for diaspora affairs. 鈥淲e want them to come back.鈥�

The lure of home

According to the government, nearly 3,000 people have returned to Latvia over the last three years, mainly from Scandinavia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, while 650 other families have indicated that they are planning to do the same.

The returnees are coming back for a variety of reasons, according to Ms. Gavele. 鈥淪ome are coming back because they want their children to study at Latvian schools. Others are coming back to buy an apartment or upgrade their living conditions.鈥�

鈥淥thers are returning to start a new business based on an idea they developed and wish to try out in their homeland,鈥� she says. 鈥淎nd of course then there are those who miss their family.鈥�

Sentiment is a major factor, if not the only one, propelling the latest wave of Latvian repatriates home. Such is the case for Maija Hartmane. She moved to the U.K., the most popular destination for Latvian emigrants, with her parents in 2007 at the beginning of the Great Recession, but returned in 2018.

鈥淚t was never really about moving back, per se,鈥� says Ms. Hartmane, who now manages a guesthouse in R膩zna National Park near R膿zekne. 鈥淎ll my school summer holidays were spent here. My entire family lived in Latvia, and I felt that this was where I belonged.鈥�

The young hospitality worker 鈥渁lways鈥� intended to come back, she says. Besides, she adds, 鈥淚 never really 鈥榝it鈥� into British culture, although I did make some very good friends there.鈥�

Leeds, where her family settled in England, was too 鈥渂ig,鈥� she says. So is the Latvian capital of Riga, for that matter. 鈥淚 wanted to get back to the countryside and fresh air. So here I am.鈥� Referring to the seclusion of Latgale and the park where she works and lives, she adds,聽鈥漈his is where my soul belongs.鈥�

Ms. Hartmane聽gives Astrida Lescinska, the remigration counselor for the Latgale planning region, considerable credit for helping her decide to return. A remigrant herself who had moved to the U.K. as a teenager in 2012, Ms. Lescinska now works to contact potential returnees and create a plan for them to move back to Latvia.

鈥淥ne of the major challenges of my job is to tell them what Latvia is like today,鈥� says Ms. Lescinska, who is based in Daugavpils, Latgale鈥檚 largest city. Many potential returnees are not familiar with how much Latvia has changed, or how much the economy has improved, she says.

鈥淢ost emigrants, I find, want to come home,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey just need a little push聽鈥� and to know that there is someone there to assist them and to continue to make them feel at home after they do return.鈥�

鈥淥ur regional coordinators are actively and relentlessly working in helping our citizens to move back to Latvia,鈥� says Art奴rs Toms Ple拧s, the minister for environmental protection and regional development, which oversees the accelerated remigration campaign. 鈥淚 believe that the pandemic has played a role, too. Now that people know that they can work remotely, some see that as a productive way to return.鈥�

鈥淎 complex decision鈥�

Ms. Zelcha, the tattoo artist who returned to Baltinava in April of this year, works with Ms. Lescinska to encourage other potential remigrants. 鈥淚 am glad that I moved away,鈥� she says. 鈥淢oving away gave me a new understanding of my society and my village.鈥�

鈥淚 saw the opportunities it offered, which I hadn鈥檛 seen before. Also, I received a lot of support for my hand-poke tattooing business, which is something that is very rare in our country.鈥�

Latvia has changed, and for the better, she says, 鈥渂ut the biggest change for me was internal,鈥� and the way she perceives and appreciates things she hadn鈥檛 necessarily appreciated before, like the sublime 鈥渃almness鈥� of her village.

For all the remigrant success stories, there are those who feel that the Latvian government could do even more to ease their return.

鈥淚 think the government could also allow returnees not to pay taxes for the first year, the way that Canada and Portugal do,鈥� says Liene Ozolina, a sociologist who returned to Latvia with her American husband and young son last year after living for 10 years in London. 鈥淚 think that this would be a real way for Latvia to incentivize its citizens to return.鈥�

鈥淏ut,鈥� she adds, 鈥渆ven that in itself would not be the driving force for someone to return.鈥�

The process of re-acclimating to Latvia has not been without its bumps, says Dr. Ozolina, who now lives in Riga, where she teaches at the Latvian Academy of Culture. There have been shocks, particularly the difference between English and Latvian manners. She does not deny that she misses the former. 鈥淧eople are less kind and gracious in public,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hat can hurt. In London, the form is that if you step on someone鈥檚 foot you automatically say 鈥榮orry.鈥� Not here, I am afraid.鈥�

鈥淭he roughness and incivility of the Soviet days dies hard,鈥� she adds, referring to the half-century-long Russian occupation of the Baltic nation, which ended 30 years ago. 鈥淵ou can still feel the trauma of that time.鈥�

Nevertheless, she and her husband are happy with their decision to move back to Latvia. 鈥淩eturning home is a complex decision with its own emotional and rational dimensions,鈥� says Dr. Ozolina. 鈥淲hat matters is how it feels to be back in a place where you have your childhood friends and your relatives. These were the things which ultimately carried the most weight in my decision to return home.鈥�

鈥淚n the end, it was the right decision for me.鈥�