Steimane was accompanied to the award ceremony by fellow Suiti women as well as Latvian Television.
Having sung all the way to Rīga, the Suiti women did not stop at the award ceremony too, voicing their songs at the House of Blackheads where Ruch received the Order of the Three Stars for her lifetime contribution in preserving and enriching the Suiti cultural heritage.
Suiti women are richly dressed singers from Catholic enclave in the Suiti region of Kurzeme. Their distinct songs sound "the special, ancient, long, and many-voiced drone".
"Ruch and Norie" is a 2015 film about the unlikely bond between Ruch and Norie, a Japanese exchange student in Latvia. Norie will be visiting again in the fall, this time with husband and son.
Here's how Suiti women sound like:
