The first Latvian words I learned were the ones plastered over Riga’s art nouveau façades and brand-new office parks: “iznoma” (“for rent”) and “pardod” (“for sale”). In 2008, Latvia had the world’s fastest-falling house prices, and they’re still dropping. One morning in Café Osiris, Katja Jekaterina, who recently lost her job in real estate, gestured at some property speculators at a nearby table. “They bought a luxury car, a boat, a house, with leverage of 100 per cent because it was possible,” she said. “Now they have this boat and this car but they do not have the gasoline for it.” Every month Jekaterina herself needs to find €700 – her mortgage loan is in euros. If Latvia devalues the lats, she’s in trouble.

Few countries in history have risen and fallen as fast as Latvia. From 1991 to 2004, this country of 2.3 million people went from Soviet republic to member of the European Union and Nato. From 2004 through 2007 Latvia was probably Europe’s fastest-growing economy, with annual expansion above 10 per cent. People who had lived in rundown Soviet communal apartments, sharing one bathroom between several families, were suddenly buying BMWs.