RIGA, Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia's president, has a message for those Russians who are still nostalgic for the days of the Soviet empire.
"Russians need to remember that red passports with a hammer and sickle are no longer accepted here," she said in an interview at her residence at Riga Castle.
"The Latvian president resides here in this castle - not in the Kremlin," she added, pointing to the street outside her office window where 100,000 Latvians demonstrated in 1989, helping to overthrow 50 years of Soviet occupation.
Vike-Freiberga, nicknamed the "Baltic Iron Lady," is not afraid to speak her mind. Just weeks before Latvia joined the European Union last year, she defied Germany and France by speaking out in favor of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, prompting accusations of disloyalty from two of the bloc's most important members. But the gesture also earned her the ear of President George W. Bush and gave her country of 2.3 million an outsize voice in global affairs.
Now, Washington insiders say, she is one of Bush's favored candidates to become the next secretary general of the United Nations. Analysts say that her ardent support for the war in Iraq would make her a controversial nominee and that she would face difficulty avoiding a Russian veto in the Security Council.
But Vike-Freiberga, who calls the UN post "not a bad job," says she has no regrets about supporting the war. "The world is better off without that dictator Saddam Hussein," she declared.
With her helmet of carefully coiffed auburn hair and her instinctive pro-Americanism, Vike-Freiberga, 68, bears an eerie resemblance to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. But while Thatcher's attitudes were shaped largely by economics, Vike-Freiberga said she owed her politics to her forced exile from Latvia as a child in 1944, when the Soviet Union invaded the country.
Her family fled from Latvia that year, braving Nazi aerial bombardment before escaping to the coast along with 500,000 other refugees. Her family caught one of the last refugee ships out of the country after hiding in a cellar. She spent four years in a German refugee camp before moving to Morocco and then to Canada, where she studied and taught psychology.
Vike-Freiberga - recently voted one of the world's 50 most powerful women by Forbes magazine - gained prominence in her native land when she returned in 1998 to run the Latvian Institute, a government information agency. Only a year later, she was elected president, a compromise choice who came out of nowhere, analysts say, and ran as an independent.
"Hardly anyone knew her - she was this ordinary woman who seemed like she had arrived from the countryside," said Sanita Jemberga, a political commentator for Diena, Latvia's most respected newspaper. "But within months she had a complete makeover and became so popular that people were afraid to criticize her." She is now serving her second term.
Vike-Freiberga noted that Latvia has achieved much since it won its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, notably entering the EU and NATO, and becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.
But she cautions that Latvia is still living in the shadow of a Russia that, she says, has not come to terms with its lost empire or past transgressions: suppressing Latvia's culture for 50 years, banning its flag and deporting tens of thousands to Siberia as part of an effort to Russify the country.
"It's hard for Russia and its leaders to swallow the independence of countries it has been coveting since the time of Peter the Great," she said, referring to the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
"Russia has a problem recognizing us as a sovereign country. They tell us we never had a Tolstoy or a Dostoevski. I enjoy reading these writers, but they have no bearing on our right to be here."
Vike-Freiberga said she had worked hard to court the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and in May braved domestic accusations of flouting Baltic loyalty by visiting him in Moscow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Nonetheless, she said, relations remain erratic. Fourteen years after Latvian independence, the two countries have still not signed a border agreement, she noted, adding: "Russia will never become a true democracy until it comes to term with its past."
Moscow, for its part, accuses Latvia of discriminating against its sizable Russian minority by refusing to grant instant citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians left from Soviet times. But Vike-Freiberga is unapologetic. She argues that members of the Russian minority must prove their loyalty to the Latvian state.
"There are some people who never wanted an independent country and they don't want one now," she said. "Would we give them instant citizenship? No international law requires it. They are disloyal to this country and don't accept it."
She warned that Latvia was experiencing a wave of skepticism about the EU; she attributed this to an inflation rate of 7 percent, for which Latvians blame the bloc. "When people are hit in their pockets, it hurts and they get annoyed," she said. "Europe is in a downward cycle at the moment that it needs to get over."
In a country where politicians are often viewed with skepticism, Vike-Freiberga is enormously popular. But some critics question the vehemence with which she fought to gain Latvia's membership in NATO and complain that Latvia's EU membership has yet to deliver economic dividends.
"I'm not sure what our president is doing traveling around the world and getting us into NATO," said Raita Karnite, an influential economist who leads Latvia's Institute of Economics. "So far we have paid a lot, but have had little benefit."
Vike-Freiberga will step down as president in July 2007. She says she does not plan to retire and is looking forward to returning to some academic pursuits. She would also like to continue a career in public service.
But her immediate priority, she said, was to help Latvians shrug off a national tendency for self-deprecation - to feel pride again.
"People in this country love to complain," she said. "When you tell a Latvian woman she is wearing a nice dress, she will respond that it's not that nice, that it's an old rag she uses to wash the floor." Now, she added, "It is time for us to be proud."
RIGA, Latvia Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia's president, has a message for those Russians who are still nostalgic for the days of the Soviet empire.
"Russians need to remember that red passports with a hammer and sickle are no longer accepted here," she said in an interview at her residence at Riga Castle.
"The Latvian president resides here in this castle - not in the Kremlin," she added, pointing to the street outside her office window where 100,000 Latvians demonstrated in 1989, helping to overthrow 50 years of Soviet occupation.
Vike-Freiberga, nicknamed the "Baltic Iron Lady," is not afraid to speak her mind. Just weeks before Latvia joined the European Union last year, she defied Germany and France by speaking out in favor of the U.S.-led war in Iraq, prompting accusations of disloyalty from two of the bloc's most important members. But the gesture also earned her the ear of President George W. Bush and gave her country of 2.3 million an outsize voice in global affairs.
Now, Washington insiders say, she is one of Bush's favored candidates to become the next secretary general of the United Nations. Analysts say that her ardent support for the war in Iraq would make her a controversial nominee and that she would face difficulty avoiding a Russian veto in the Security Council.
But Vike-Freiberga, who calls the UN post "not a bad job," says she has no regrets about supporting the war. "The world is better off without that dictator Saddam Hussein," she declared.
With her helmet of carefully coiffed auburn hair and her instinctive pro-Americanism, Vike-Freiberga, 68, bears an eerie resemblance to former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain. But while Thatcher's attitudes were shaped largely by economics, Vike-Freiberga said she owed her politics to her forced exile from Latvia as a child in 1944, when the Soviet Union invaded the country.
Her family fled from Latvia that year, braving Nazi aerial bombardment before escaping to the coast along with 500,000 other refugees. Her family caught one of the last refugee ships out of the country after hiding in a cellar. She spent four years in a German refugee camp before moving to Morocco and then to Canada, where she studied and taught psychology.
Vike-Freiberga - recently voted one of the world's 50 most powerful women by Forbes magazine - gained prominence in her native land when she returned in 1998 to run the Latvian Institute, a government information agency. Only a year later, she was elected president, a compromise choice who came out of nowhere, analysts say, and ran as an independent.
"Hardly anyone knew her - she was this ordinary woman who seemed like she had arrived from the countryside," said Sanita Jemberga, a political commentator for Diena, Latvia's most respected newspaper. "But within months she had a complete makeover and became so popular that people were afraid to criticize her." She is now serving her second term.
Vike-Freiberga noted that Latvia has achieved much since it won its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990, notably entering the EU and NATO, and becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.
But she cautions that Latvia is still living in the shadow of a Russia that, she says, has not come to terms with its lost empire or past transgressions: suppressing Latvia's culture for 50 years, banning its flag and deporting tens of thousands to Siberia as part of an effort to Russify the country.
"It's hard for Russia and its leaders to swallow the independence of countries it has been coveting since the time of Peter the Great," she said, referring to the three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.
"Russia has a problem recognizing us as a sovereign country. They tell us we never had a Tolstoy or a Dostoevski. I enjoy reading these writers, but they have no bearing on our right to be here."
Vike-Freiberga said she had worked hard to court the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and in May braved domestic accusations of flouting Baltic loyalty by visiting him in Moscow to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II.
Nonetheless, she said, relations remain erratic. Fourteen years after Latvian independence, the two countries have still not signed a border agreement, she noted, adding: "Russia will never become a true democracy until it comes to term with its past."
Moscow, for its part, accuses Latvia of discriminating against its sizable Russian minority by refusing to grant instant citizenship to the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Russians left from Soviet times. But Vike-Freiberga is unapologetic. She argues that members of the Russian minority must prove their loyalty to the Latvian state.
"There are some people who never wanted an independent country and they don't want one now," she said. "Would we give them instant citizenship? No international law requires it. They are disloyal to this country and don't accept it."
She warned that Latvia was experiencing a wave of skepticism about the EU; she attributed this to an inflation rate of 7 percent, for which Latvians blame the bloc. "When people are hit in their pockets, it hurts and they get annoyed," she said. "Europe is in a downward cycle at the moment that it needs to get over."
In a country where politicians are often viewed with skepticism, Vike-Freiberga is enormously popular. But some critics question the vehemence with which she fought to gain Latvia's membership in NATO and complain that Latvia's EU membership has yet to deliver economic dividends.
"I'm not sure what our president is doing traveling around the world and getting us into NATO," said Raita Karnite, an influential economist who leads Latvia's Institute of Economics. "So far we have paid a lot, but have had little benefit."
Vike-Freiberga will step down as president in July 2007. She says she does not plan to retire and is looking forward to returning to some academic pursuits. She would also like to continue a career in public service.
But her immediate priority, she said, was to help Latvians shrug off a national tendency for self-deprecation - to feel pride again.
"People in this country love to complain," she said. "When you tell a Latvian woman she is wearing a nice dress, she will respond that it's not that nice, that it's an old rag she uses to wash the floor." Now, she added, "It is time for us to be proud."