Aside from the other comments about the NATURAL language, that time period is pretty much exactly when MicroFocus was releasing their new "COBOL for Windows" product, which I can see satisfying your "shit sandwich" prediction. :)

We went to Riga for the first time last year. What has stuck with me is going to the Museum of the Occupation [1] and spending some time there.

Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, then invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941, then the Soviet Union took it back in 1944. People who attracted the attention of the authorities in any way during those times didn't survive.

Sure, Cambodia, Armenia, etc. might be worse but very not Canada. Many people probably don't know that, of course.

[1] http://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/en/

The people had to suffer even more shit before that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKIeD3RxRQ (animated history, ca. 8 min)

I'm not so sure about the Canada parallel: Canada has GDP per capita closer to the US, Latvia is much lower (but still much higher than Latin America and China so I'm not sure what other case would be similar).

I think they meant Latvians here are being portrayed as friendly or harmless like Canadians often are as well — not so much a reference to standard of living.

Sorry I was being a little tongue in cheek there!

End of the day, Latvia is exotic but also harmless.

It’s really weird to put in a press release that two contractors were hired and stress the Latvia angle. Me being the cynic I am about such matters assume that it’s a distraction from an actual story!