No Latvian president has visited Russia since 1994, when the Russian troops redrew from Latvia, so it’s safe to say that the recent visit to Moscow by Latvian president Valdis Zatlers is a historic one. More so, if we consider the purpose of the visit: tightening the relationships between the two countries, and establishing better conditions for their citizens.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his Latvian counterpart Valdis Zatlers.
Among these, the possibility of establishing a visa-free regime would make traveling easier for border residents. While this issue remains open, Russian Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy Minister Vitaly Mutko and Latvian Economics Minister Artis Kampars have already signed an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of tourism, and this is one of the seven agreements already signed by the two countries in Moscow.
Moscow, Spasskaya Tower in the Red Square, photo courtesy Sergey Rodovnichenko.
Aside tourism, these include a Russian-Latvian treaty on cooperation in the field of social welfare; an agreement on conditions of locating the Russian embassy in Latvia and the Latvian embassy in Russia; an agreement on cooperation in crime prevention, in particular, prevention of organized crime; an agreement on cooperation in the field of prevention and elimination of emergency situations; an intergovernmental agreement on cooperation in the field of environmental protection; and an agreement on avoiding double taxation and prevention of tax evasion in respect to the taxation of the income from capital.
Staro Riga 2010, The Three brother's labyrinth - photo courtesy Eduard Kreis
The visit means a tremendous progress for the relationship between the two countries, which historically have been splitting hairs over perceived attempts to rewrite the history of World War II and diminish the Soviet role in the defeat of Nazi Germany. Additionally the two presidents touched the issue of Latvia’s 335,000 non-citizens, of whom over 221,000 are ethnic Russians.
