Daina Tabūna's stories have recently been published in the UK by The Emma Press, bearing the title, The Secret Box. The illustrated collection features three stories from her debut, Pirmā reize (The First Time).
As a rule of thumb, the longer any particular Latvian party is drawn out, the higher the chance someone will put on something by Andris Kivičs, use his lyrics to make an ironic point, or simply mention him, often apropos nothing, to score an easy laugh.
There's a peculiar tradition on Miķeļi (September 29), known in English as Michaelmas, for kids to bring homemade trinkets, food and other things to school for sale. It could be seen as an attempt to instill entrepreneurial spirit among young people, but wherever there are children involved, things are bound to slide off course.
Valters Dakša, a young book lover with a collection of about 5,000 titles, is giving away the house he inherited from his parents in order to transform it into an arts center.
In a new series of small features, LSM looks at things that could be considered characteristic of Latvia; things that create the little 'nowhere but here' moments that make our country stand out, for better or worse. What better way to start off than potholes, a phenomenon with which many people will be intimately and physically familiar.
June 9 marked three years and nine days since A., 17, started living at the Liepāja Orphanage.
The Latvian language is "a mirror of the wonderful story of our nation", says a linguistics professor at the University of Latvia.
May 9-10 marks the 100th anniversary of the First Latgale Congress. It was then, in 1917, that Latgalians chose to unite with the other Latvian regions. What follows is a Latvian Radio strand highlighting the differences between Latgalians and other Latvian speakers, as well as tracing their role in the formation of the Latvian state.
Latvia has many museums, and some are very quirky. Here's a selection of the ten strangest Latvian museums celebrating the bizarre, the uncanny and the downright mind-boggling.
