In happier times the little town of Marciena, in Latvia, might have seemed a winter wonderland. Snow falls on quaint wooden lodges, a footbridge over a frozen pond and an old manor house where a baron once lived. The only thing missing is the people.

From her bed in the town’s nursing home Ausma Zarina, 81, a retired teacher, ponders the exodus from the place where she has spent her life and which — since Latvia joined the EU and free movement arrived — has rapidly emptied of its young people.

This Christmas, like last year, she spent the holiday 1,200 miles away from the family she raised. Her grandson lives and works in Britain while she remains in Marciena, now an eerie ghost town