Formerly a professor in Canada, the president had more luck persuading parliament to change a law that set a tough Latvian-language qualification for election candidates, ruling out those Russians who speak it poorly or not at all.

ECONOMIST: The Baltic countries

That means they have to rely on what is known as "relay" interpretation: interpreters listen to an English-language translation of say a Latvian speech, and use the English version to interpret into other languages.

BBC: NEWS | Europe | EU grapples with translation boom