The Price Of Easy Money
The harder the financial situation, the more people are willing to risk ending up in jail to improve it. A prospect of earning about five thousand or more dollars in one day – that is the payment for delivering a…
Wages Of Desperation
One in six people of economically active working age cannot find a job in Latvia, yet business owners are still complaining about labour shortages. Apparently Latvians have got used to living off welfare and this is the reason why workers…
One Week In A Fish Factory
An aching back, cut fingers, and at least eight hours of monotonous work make up an ordinary day at the Gamma-A fish factory. The pay for a packed can is two santimes (2.8 euro cents).
How two brothers created an “epidemic of drug mules” in Estonia
In 2007, the Estonian economy was booming with salaries rising overnight and newspapers reporting only good news. At the same time another boom was taking place with dozens of young Estonian men being captured working as “drug mules” in Europe…
Baltic Drug Mules
They think that they’re off to collect some easy money, but come to their senses in a sun bleached hell, where they spend the best years of their lives. Each year more than a hundred drug couriers from the Baltic…
The Quick Trap
Who would borrow 200 lats to repay one thousand or even three after one year? Latvians, however, are making this unbelievable choice ever more often. While many have yet to recover from the crisis, the quick credit business is fully…
They longed for their home so much, but…
When the bustle of Bergen, a large Norwegian city on the country’s west coast, recedes into the night, Inese Liepina and her husband Peteris go to work. Around midnight, Peteris stacks about 1,000 newspapers into Ineses trunk, and about 6,000…
So Rich, So Poor
When a year ago, Dzintra Briede got divorced, lost her job and all of her income, this mother of four moved in with her father, who lives in the small village of Bunka, in the Western Latvia. Turns out that…
The Hardest Part was When We Couldn’t Afford Bread
This week Latvia lost another family. The Birgelis family from Puikules moved to Germany to start a new life, as they couldn’t earn enough money even for bread in Latvia. The story from Puikule: about those that have left and…