One thing of which Latvia has no shortage is cemeteries. While a visit to one of them can be for reasons that are extremely sad, slightly melancholy or relaxingly tranquil, having an expert historian by your side turns such a visit into one of the more interesting hours of your brief life above ground.
Ārpus ētera
Having dealt with the northernmost point in Latvia last week, it is now time to turn our attention to the southernmost point in Estonia.
Thankfully the Latvia-Estonia border is not the cartographically satisfying but extremely boring straight line such as one finds between certain of the United States or countries owning shares in the Sahara Desert. On a large-scale map it looks fairly consistent, but the closer you zoom in, the more irregular and oddball it becomes.
In 2024, Tartu – or rather, Tartu and a large chunk of southern Estonia – is a European Capital of Culture, and as LSM has already reported, a concerted effort is being made to attract as many Latvian residents as possible to the party. However, it would be misleading of me to say that's the reason for this series of features. It's not the reason, it's the excuse. Some of us have had the Northern Latvia/Southern Estonia bug for a long time already and need no new invitation to explore the quirks and kinks of the Latvia-Estonia border.
Latvia's search for its 'Nokia' has been a protracted one. For those not familiar with the term, the search for "Latvia's Nokia" has been around since the days when Finland's Nokia was the big success of the Baltic region and has been used as shorthand for a concept combining Sir Gawain's quest for the Holy Grail, the Conquistadores' search for Eldorado and Austin Powers' bid to regain his mojo. As with all these examples, the hunt for Latvia's Nokia went on a bit longer than was strictly necessary.
Having decided to apply for Latvian citizenship, my next step was to do very little for a couple of years. Rather, I quickly obtained most of the necessary documents and assumed the rest would take minimal effort so could be put off until that mythical moment we all dream of "when I have some free time."
I have always preferred minor character actors to A-list film stars. They might only get a scene or two, but the presence of these strangely-shaped, broken-nosed, odd-looking and heavily-accented figures gives a film a human appeal and variety that can never be conveyed by the handsome and beautiful leading men and ladies.
This is the last Thing of Latvia. Looking back, we have written about more than 30 different Things of Latvia. Some have proved popular, some not. Some have been well written, some less so. But of one thing we can be certain, in one thing we can take some pride: we have never stooped to writing about the "caurvējš".
If you happened to notice there was no ''Thing of Latvia'' last week, and you were in the mood to guess why, it would be reasonable to speculate that we at LSM were ill, lazy, drunk or out of ideas. Such surmises might be correct in one, several or all respects. However, we could quite easily maintain our dignity and reputation by answering that there was no ''Thing of Latvia'' last week tehnisku iemeslu dēļ or due to technical reasons.
A bar-room acquaintance once told me that while travelling many years ago in Eastern Anatolia, he made the mistake of "tut-tutting" during a conversation. While a local was complaining at length about the difficulties of life in a remote village, he delivered what may even have been a tut rather than a full tut-tut as a gesture of sympathy and understanding at the many trials with which life likes to torture us.
In the past we have written at length about the mighty dižkoki or "great trees" of Latvia. Huge, majestic, long-lived and (and if you believe all the way) serving as repositories of folkloric power, they are rightly venerated.
April 10 sees the opening of a major exhibition at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris dedicated to the art of the Baltic states. Titled Âmes Sauvages: Le symbolisme dans l’art des pays Baltes. (Wild Souls: Symbolism in the art of the Baltic states), it runs until July 15 and forms one of the cornerstones of Estonia's, Latvia's and Lithuania's international celebrations of their founding centenaries.
In Brussels on February 23 Latvian Prime Minister Māris Kučinskis was on a damage limitation exercise. For a week newspapers across Europe and beyond had been running front-page stories about sensational developments in Latvia's financial sector involving allegations of money-laundering, bribery, conspiracy, corruption and even, according to the government's own sources, a "probable" co-ordinated campaign to defame Latvia's name - which is a bit like saying everyone is making too much out of the money-laundering, bribery, conspiracy and corruption.