The Lonely Planet Blonde Guide To Latvia

Well....this could modify my future travel plans somewhat.

From the country that brought us the Blonde Parade comes word that a gender imbalance that skews 8% towards the women has left the Baltic former Soviet republic of Latvia short of men.

While more boys are born in Latvia than girls, the balance shifts dramatically in adulthood.

A high early male mortality rate means that there are 8% more women than men in the country

In the busy entry hall of the University of Latvia, Riga, the gender imbalance is visible.

According to sociologist and lecturer Baiba Bela, there are 50% more women enrolled there than men.

She says this means that women often find it harder to find a partner with an equal level of education.

And by the time women want to settle down, men are dying younger and are four times more likely to commit suicide.

"The first time the gender imbalance appears is between 30 and 40," Baiba explains.

"In this age group the mortality for men is three times higher than the same age group for women."

"Car driving, alcoholism and accidents in the workplace are mainly riskier for men than for women," she adds.

Among the under-30s, there are almost 9,000 more men than women. But between the ages of 30-39, there are almost 3,000 more women than men.

A couple of facts about Latvia- it covers roughly 25,000 square miles and is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, the Baltic sea to the west and Russia and Belarus to the east. The unit of currency is the Lat and although it is supposed to be integrated into the Euro-zone, the economic crisis of the last two years have put those plans off until at least sometime in 2012. Latvia's official language, unsurprisingly, is Latvian. Citizens of the USA, Canada, Australia, the UK, New Zealand and most EU countries do not require visas for stays of up to 90 days.

Included among Latvia's exports, mezzo-soprano opera singer Elina Garanca (appropriately enough, the blonde in the duet):

On a 100% completely unrelated note, my passport expired nearly three years ago, yet I somehow feel the driving need to get a new one as soon as possible.