Question What makes the Baltic states close to each other?

[Tomenable]

When I think about it, they seem to have more differences than similarities.

Lithuaniia and Latvia are both Baltic-speaking but one is Catholic and the other one Protestant (except for SE Latvia).

Estonia is Protestant but Finnic-speaking instead of Baltic-speaking.

Estonia was under Swedish domination, Latvia under German & Polish domination and Lithuania had its own empire.

What are the similarities that unite them into the concept of "Baltic states"?

 

[HereToLearn]

The Baltic Sea I suppose. Imagine when people use the Mediterranean Sea as an excuse to group together countries that have even less in common...

 

[Rare&Ephemeral]

We share very similar history as far as raids by other countries go, especially big influence from Soviet era: huge amount of people (especially older generations) can speak Russian and I believe it’s mandatory language in all three countries. We are both similarly very small countries by population and territory, we don’t have mountains and weather is shitty for most of the year. Russians, Ukrainians snd Belarusians currently make up around 30-40% of the population in Estonia and Latvia (not so much in Lithuania, but still a significant amount). You’ll see a similar Soviet influenced architecture in our countries. People are culturally very similar, rather Eastern European shifted, we are cold and don’t show as much emotions, which you might see in some other European countries. People are genetically very similar and visually look the same, we are also quite tall. Vast majority of people are not religious, especially in Estonia. Due to our history, the feelings towards Russia are currently very negative, especially after 2014 & 2022. We don’t have big economic opportunities here and many younger generation people are moving out, in addition to serious birth decline in recent years. Very big difference is in sports though: Latvia is very good in hockey, Lithuania in basketball and Estonia sucks almost at everything, besides volleyball and (sometimes) basketball.

 

[traveller]

The economic development during past 35 years has been really impressive in all the Baltic countries, boosted by the original determination to gain EU and NATO memberships as fast as possible. EU membership has in turn boosted both private investment as well as infrastructure development.

The countries are quite similar genetically as well as culturally (though people tend to point out the differences more than the similarities). Politically also there is broad support for Western values and democracy, by having the Nordic countries, Germany and UK as role models and partners.