From the moment the words ‘Baltic States' first became known in the international community, Latvia was always the middle one. We couldn't escape that. Never will. As long as the countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are always lumped together and called the Baltic States, Latvia will always be the geographic, political, cultural and spiritual middle one. It must come with the territory.

Latvia is also in the middle of everything that is going on in Scandinavia, Russia, and the North Sea, which is one of the main reasons why Riga looks the way it does today. Although there are financial centres throughout the EU, Riga is pretty much in the middle of all of them. If it happens in London, Paris, Brussels or Berlin, it has an effect on Riga. Things that happen here are felt in those cities as well.

Latvia is so used to being in the middle of everything, it comes as a surprise when we are left out. When Germany and Russia agreed to run a gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, we were offended that they didn't include us in the deal. Lithuania and Estonia are equally concerned, as are Sweden, Finland and a lot of other neighbors, but Latvia is in the middle of it all, any way you look at it.

Some would say that Latvians take a middle road in most of the things they do. Back when the Baltic States restored their independence in 1991, foreign affairs analyst Paul Goble liked to distinguish the temperaments of the three nations by telling this slightly enhanced story about how we each dismantled our hated Lenin monuments:

"In Lithuania, Landsbergis gave an impassioned speech on TV and thousands of Lithuanians rushed to the public square in Vilnius and tore it down with their bare hands. In Latvia, the government appointed a committee of politicians who supervised a committee of engineers, who studied the project for several days and then quietly dismantled the statue in Riga in the middle of the night. In Estonia, no one knew where the Lenin monument was located, so the government hired a Finnish company to come in and take it away."

When President Bill Clinton came to toast the Baltic States in 1994, he met all three presidents in Riga, the midpoint of the legendary 1989 Baltic Way human chain that he mentioned in his speech. When NATO decided it was time to have a summit in the middle of the Baltic States in 2006, it chose Riga as the place to host it.

At times it seems like Latvia is midway between everything. Between success and failure, prosperity and poverty, the past and the future. North, south, east or west, from Riga you can look in any direction you want and Latvia seems to be in the middle of it all. It's not that we are self-centered as a people. We‘ve just always been surrounded by the rest of the world.