It is bound by the Baltic Sea to the west, the Gulf of Riga and Estonia to the north, Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast and Lithuania to the south. The country is generally low lying with a gentle undulating terrain interspersed by hills and ridges. Along the Baltic Sea coast including the Gulf of Riga, the coastline is smooth and fringed by low muddy beaches and sand dunes. Latvia is well endowed with forests, lakes, small streams and peat bogs while the principal river is the Daugava or Western Dvina. Latvia has a transitional climate between the maritime climate of West Europe and the continental climate of Russia.
Winters are long and cold while summers are warm with rainfall heaviest during summer and autumn.
Other ethnic minorities include Poles, Lithuanians, Tartars and Jews. Mostly Christians, of which the majority are Lutherans with minorities of Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics. The official language is Latvian, although Russian is widely spoken and each ethnic minority also has its own language. In Mar. 1953 Yosef Stalin died and was succeeded by Georgy Malenkov who was in turn forced to relinquish the party leadership to Nikita Khrushchev after a little over one week in power. In 1955 the Warsaw pact militarily aligned the Soviet Union with other communist countries and in Nov. 1956 the Soviet Red Army invaded Hungary to quell uprisings.