Latvia's looking back while trying to find the best way to get ahead. Photo by Delmi Álvarez/Baltic Reports

RIGA — The twentieth anniversary of Latvia’s independence this week provoked many reactions, including patriotism, pride but also disappointment and disgust.

Given the depth of the country’s ongoing economic crisis, with the highest unemployment in the European Union and government only solvent because of an IMF bailout, life for many Latvians is difficult.

Many politicians past and present had few good words to say about Latvia’s state of health 20 years on from the day the Supreme Soviet declared independence from Moscow, less than two months of Lithuania did the same.

However, despite the economic woes that have befallen the country, its citizens can at least be proud that they’ve enjoyed Western-style freedoms for 20 years.

Baltic Reports photojournalist Delmi Álvarez went around Riga on May 4 capturing the mood of a country looking at itself in the mirror on this important anniversary.