The inability of the Swedes (and as I have heard also Norwegians and Danes) to distinguish between the different Baltikum states really borders with a genetic pathology. That's what I have come to believe after spending some time here... Just 3 short examples
1) First time I was an exchange student in Kalmar, it was still before Schengen and I had to fill in a form and send it to Migrationsverket (Immigration Office) in Växjo and they had to send me back a plastic residence permit card. The system was very easy and fast, so a plus for that because in many other countries migration procedures can give you a hard time. However, I decided to fill in the form in English. I was hesitating for a while between writing "Latvia" or "Lettland" (in Swedish) in the field for the citizenship, but I chose to write it in English as I was filling in the form in English... that was my mistake. Because I got back my plastic residence permit card with "Litauen." I wrote a very angry complaint mail saying that people working in the Immigration Office at least should learn the difference. I did not get any reply to my email but in a week I got a new plastic card with "Lettland." So at the end I had two residence permit cards in my wallet. With "Litauen" for the times I do something wrong and for "Lettland" for all the other times. Unfortunately, I never needed to use them and my wallet got stolen shortly after returning to Latvia, so my best souvenir from Sweden got stolen with it. Uhh, what a pity.
2) Recently I started to work as studiehandledare (something like teaching assistant) for a little Latvian girl at a Swedish school. It is a preparatory class for children who have recently arrived in Sweden and are starting to go to school. On the wall of the classroom they have a beautiful map of the world with a lot of pictures of important objects and how people look like and live in different places... However, "Lettland" and "Litauen" appear to have exchanged their territories on this beautiful map. Lithuania is now north of Latvia. What can one expect from these kids when they grow up if they learn from wrong maps and nobody teaches them that there is a substantial difference in whether Latvia is north of Lithuania or Lithuania is north of Latvia.
3) Today I went to a bank to open an account. I started with asking whether we could speak in English because I had to explain a complicated history, which I thought I would have trouble with in Swedish. The lady said "of course we can talk little English," after which I saw that probably it will be still better if I try in Swedish as her English was of a similar level. However, when she saw my passport, she suddenly ran away with some good idea. I could see that she is talking to her colleague. Then she ran back saying that her colleague is also from Lettland. However, when this colleague herself came up to me, she blushed and apologized that she does not know Latvian as she comes from Estonia.
