Situated in north-eastern Europe with a coastline along the Baltic Sea, Latvia is geographically the middle of the three former Soviet Baltic republics, with Lithuania to its south and Estonia to its north. Latvia was under foreign dominion from the 13th until the 20th century. Following World War I it declared independence from Russia in 1920. But during World War II Latvia was invaded by the Soviet troops in 1940 and was absorbed into the Soviet Union. Latvia regained its independence in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Since then, Latvia has maintained and strengthened the democratic, parliamentary republic that it revived in 1990. Implementation of a comprehensive economic reform program has rapidly transformed the country into a free-market economy. During much of the past decade, Latvia’s economic performance has outstripped other former Soviet republics, and these achievements helped propel Latvia into EU membership in May of 2004. Following an economic boom in 2004-2007, however, Latvia was hit hard by the global financial crisis of 2008. The sharp economic downturn prompted the government to seek aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in late 2008, but the worsening economic crisis sparked an unprecedented riot. In February 2009 Prime Minister Godmanis resigned amidst growing public distrust and tension over Latvia’s economic decline. Days later, President Zatlers nominated Valdis Dombrovskis to be the country's new prime minister.