BALTIC STATES: Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia sang and danced their way into the European Union this weekend, and out of the lingering shadow of five decades of Soviet occupation.
The EU flag was hoisted into blue skies above the packed streets of the Baltic nations on Saturday, marking their stunning 13-year transformation from communist subjects of the Kremlin into vibrant democracies with surging market economies.
Lithuania tried to outshine the rest of the world, flicking on lights across the country for a five-minute burst on Friday night. Estonians partied and then started planting a million trees, while Latvia held a spectacular concert between the Daugava River and the graceful old town of its capital, Riga.
"This is our achievement and our future," President Vaira Vike-Freiberga said of EU membership. "And tonight we have a sense of purpose and togetherness; of the nation being together and of our being with Europe."
"We want to show the world that Latvians know how to work hard and also how to celebrate, and we are doing that by singing," she told The Irish Times while watching 50,000 revellers enjoy the concert. "We are good at that as well, I think."
The songs stretched as far as Drogheda, where a Latvian choir performed on Saturday. Estonia, meanwhile, sent a philharmonic orchestra to play in Galway.
A concert in the middle of the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, attracted about 30,000 people, who made the most of free public transport to celebrate around the city until dawn on May 1st.
"It took us many years to make this journey. Now it is completed. Welcome to Europe. Welcome back home," acting president Mr Arturas Paulauskas told the crowd.
Police boats patrolled the Daugava as night fell over Riga, a multicoloured hot-air balloon flared and rose over the water, and a large clock ticked down towards midnight and the moment the EU welcomed some of its ten new members. The jubilant crowd cheered as big screens showed clips of celebrations in other entrant states.
"I think the future has to be better than our past," said Oskars Zakis (16). "There'll be tough times, probably, but we have hope now too. Lots of hope." Hundreds of thousands of people from this region were killed or deported to Siberian labour camps on the orders of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. The Nazis exterminated most of the region's Jews during their own reign of terror. Long-awaited freedom from Moscow also came at a bloody price in 1991: at least five demonstrators were killed in Riga, and 13 in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania.
Many people here view membership of the EU and NATO - which the Baltic states joined last month - as vital protection from Russia, their huge and often cantankerous neighbour: all three Baltic nations have sent diplomats back to Moscow in recent months for alleged spying, and Lithuania's president was impeached in April amid accusations of links to the Russian mafia and security services.
In Latvia and Estonia, big Russian communities are unhappy with their lot, and want the EU to know all about it.
As the EU flag was raised in Riga on a sunny Saturday, some 20,000 Russians marched to protest at a new language law that forces public schools to teach most of their lessons in Latvian, even in places where the majority of students only speak Russian.
Non-Latvians also have to pass a language, history and culture test to receive citizenship, with the upshot that more than 300,000 residents are effectively stateless. Estonia endures a similar situation.
"I was born here but have no citizenship," said Ms Olga Polisadova, as she walked through a park in central Riga with her young daughter. "I could pass the tests but it's a matter of principle - why should I have to prove that I deserve a passport?"
Ms Polisadova (25) and many others in Riga worry that EU membership will send prices of staple foods spiralling, while wages stay the same.
In Estonia and Latvia, shops in some towns have reported an unprecedented peacetime run on basic foods.
"Salt, sugar, bread and medicines are already more expensive," said Ms Vlada Levinska (33), a trolleybus driver. "The poor will stay poor - the EU won't change that."
Optimism does prevail though, at voluntarily joining the world's largest trading block after decades of bending to Moscow's will.
Tens of thousands of Estonians - and the usual compliment of Scandinavians who hop over to Tallinn for cheap, boozy weekends - packed the narrow cobblestone streets of the city for raucous festivities.
"One dream comes true for Estonia," said Mr Vahur Kraft, Governor of the Bank of Estonia, at a concert by the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra. "I will uncork a bottle of fine champagne."
Mr Kraft is one of the men who has presided over the region's business boom, prompting talk of "Baltic tigers" keen to emulate Ireland's success in the early years of EU membership: Lithuania is expected to post 6.7 growth in gross domestic product this year, with Latvia's economy expanding by 6 per cent and Estonia's by 5.5 per cent.
