In an opinion piece for this Russian-language newspaper, an entrepreneur named Vladimir comments on Latvia’s new tax changes. He believes that the government started to attack the tourism sector shortly after Latvia regained its independence. He says that Latvia lost millions or even billions of dollars because it created barriers to tourists coming from Russia and the CIS. Wealthy Russians were dissuaded from visiting, but “tipplers from the west”, who used very few hotel services, were welcomed. The hotel business started to develop only over the last few years, but the government’s decision to increase VAT on hotel services from 5 percent to 21 percent will significantly affect economy and smaller 3- and 4-star hotels and could kill tourism and the hotel business altogether.