I was born in Riga, Latvia, to parents whose ancestors were rooted in the region, mostly in Latvia, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent in Belarus (Baltic Slavs have over a thousand year history in the region). Shortly after my birth, the USSR collapsed, and Latvia regained its independence. Contrary to the promises made before independence, Latvian leadership refused to grant equal nationality, labour rights, property rights, and other essential rights to a third of the country’s population. Of the three Baltic states, only Lithuania fulfilled its promises, with 99% of minorities in that country accepting nationality through the so-called “zero-option”. My family became “non-citizens” in Latvia, de facto nationals but de jure stateless. Minorities were not the only ones impacted: dozens of thousands of ethnic Latvians, Estonians, and Lithuanians also received the same status.

Recognizing that her family had little future under such conditions, my mother took me to the United States when I was still a child. There, I completed high school before moving to Winnipeg, Canada, to pursue undergraduate studies. After finishing my undergraduate studies, I took a gap year to travel, spending time in Germany, Spain, Ukraine, and Japan. Following that journey, I returned to the U.S. and began an internship in the office of Senator Kent Conrad—being quickly promoted to the Senate Budget Commitee to handle more complex assignments. 

During my time in Washington DC, I received news of my acceptance into graduate studies at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. I moved to Vancouver and immersed myself in student life, sports, and volunteer work. After completing my Master’s degree, I joined the Green Party of British Columbia to assist with the 2013 provincial elections. After the election cycle ended, I was hired by the global risk management firm IPSA International, where I led efforts to revamp due diligence methodologies for files from post-Soviet countries. I remained with the company for nearly two years. Around the same time, I began volunteering with the Canadian Red Cross, participating in their Disaster Management and First Contact programs.

Despite academic and professional success, life in North America felt bittersweet. Although I had lived there since childhood, I found it impossible to assimilate and longed to return to my home continent. I struggled with aspects of North American culture—particularly hyper-individualism, materialism, and the elevation of personal freedom above other values. Over time, I began visiting Europe more frequently, realizing that I felt far more at home on my continent of early childhood, ancestry, and culture. In 2016, I made the difficult but fulfilling decision to return to Europe and start over from scratch (again).

Coming back to my home continent has been the happiest decision of my life. Yet it came with a major challenge: navigating unpredictable discrimination due to my unusual status as a Latvian “non-citizen”—a status that Latvia insists is equivalent to Latvian nationality, but one that is poorly understood and supported in law. Ironically, I had enjoyed clearer and more equal rights in North America than on my own continent of ancestry and belonging. After several years of travel in search of stability, I felt increasingly drawn to Ukraine. Based on my paternal ancestry, I was able to apply for permanent residence in the country and finally gained a sense of home. That sense was suddenly shattered when Russia launched a full-scare invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022. 

Initially I did not plan to leave Ukraine when the war began. But when the city where I lived was being surrounded, I did not want my decisions to risk the safety of my partner at the time. We evacuated. I planned to return and work with one of the organisations that specialises in helping stateless people, but that employer entered a crises mode and was no longer able to offer the mission. I stayed with my partner in Hungary and then moved to Switzerland, along the way volunteering to help refugees from Ukraine, primarily at the Budapest train stations and later at the asylum centre in Zurich. We were waiting out the war to be over. That wait took much longer than expected and we continued to stay in Switzerland.

After almost two years in Switzerland, due to personal reasons and tragically no longer being with my partner, I decided to look for a new place where I could feel at home. I discovered it in Malta, due to the country’s warm character, strong moral compass, and lack of discrimination toward people with my status. Malta’s immigration authorities’ positive and kind response only reaffirmed my decision. I am eager to move to the island country and make every effort to repay its kindness in kind. 

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Ever since returning to Europe, my focus increasingly gravitated toward studying and lecturing on statelessness. Through engagement with the NGO, state, and UN colleagues, I realised that there are wide gaps in the field due to how individuals and communities that have direct experience of the subject are not included in the dialogues to address it. To resolve these gaps, I founded Apatride Network (www.apatride.eu), bringing fellow stateless people together toward that end. The organisation works to address statelessness in the EU, and globally, through impact initiatives, awareness raising, publications, legal assistance, strategic litigation, and stakeholder bridge building.