Riga
Latvia's capital lost its post-Soviet economic model when sanctions severed the Russia-EU transit corridor — a remora searching for a new host.
Ninety-eight percent of Latvian railway cargo used to be international, most of it Russian and Belarusian goods flowing to Latvian ports. Then the sanctions hit. Riga, Latvia's capital and home to roughly 615,000 people — down from over 900,000 at the Soviet Union's collapse — was built as the intermediary between Russia and the West. Its deep-water port, railway network, and financial services sector all served one function: processing the transit of goods and capital between Moscow's sphere and the European Union.
Wikipedia leads with Art Nouveau architecture, the old Hanseatic town, and the Daugava River. What it undersells is that Riga's entire post-Soviet economic model was demolished in under two years. Russia's invasion of Ukraine triggered EU sanctions that severed the transit corridor overnight. Latvia stopped importing Russian gas and oil, began disconnecting from the Russian electricity grid, and watched its inflation spike to 17.2% in 2022 as energy and logistics costs exploded. The country recorded the sharpest population decline in the EU — 11,100 people lost in a single year — driven by emigration and a fertility rate suppressed by the demographic crater of the 1990s.
The city is attempting a pivot. Riga's airport now handles over 50% of all air cargo across Baltic capitals. The IT sector is growing. Shadow economy activity declined to 21.4% of GDP in 2024. Latvian ports are trying to reposition as north-south European logistics hubs instead of east-west transit corridors. But the structural challenge is severe: an economy built over three decades as Russia's western funnel must now find a reason to exist without its primary customer.
The biological parallel is the remora. Remoras attach to larger marine organisms — sharks, whales, sea turtles — and feed on scraps from the host's meals while gaining transportation and protection. When the host disappears, the remora doesn't die, but it must find a new host quickly or exhaust its reserves. Riga spent thirty post-Soviet years as Russia's economic remora — a city that prospered by attaching its transit, banking, and logistics infrastructure to Russian material flows. The host has been sanctioned away. The remora is swimming free, looking for something new to attach to.