The French writer Guy de Maupassant famously said that the view from the Eiffel Tower was the best in Paris – because it was the one place in the French capital where you didn't have to look at the Eiffel Tower, which he disliked.
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Business is often talked about in terms of a willingness to take risks. There is high-risk, low-risk, calculated risk, counter-intuitive risk and even gut instinct risk. All those risks are undertaken in the anticipation of getting something in return. Quite where the profit lies in climbing the swaying 34-meter tall wooden tower that we are standing beside in a howling gale is not clear.
Driving into Jelgava on the main road from Rīga, you might be forgiven for thinking you were in provincial Germany rather than central Latvia. At least three of the large, modern new factories lining the route have the black, red, gold of the German flag fluttering outside them on a sweltering day.
Svente is 217 kilometers from Rīga, 2,400 km from Rome and 149,600,000 km from the Sun. This much one learns from the signpost just behind St Michael's Roman Catholic church in the center of the village. It is a hot day. The asphalt is melting along the edges of the road. Step onto it and you leave an imprint of the sole of your shoe that may be found by some future civilization who will wonder what you were doing here. They will not be able to guess, because what you are doing is awaiting the arrival of a mysterious Russian billionaire called Mr Krassky who will tell you all about his remarkably successful luxury business.
Cēsis looks good in the sunshine. It is a glorious spring day that feels more like a glorious summer day and the fountain in Rožu laukums pitters and patters invitingly. Every few minutes a child accepts the invitation by jumping in, prompting laughter and mock annoyance from parents.
Ķīpsala is a strange place. An island in the middle of the River Daugava directly opposite Riga Castle, it would be reasonable to expect ot to be a sort of Latvian version of the Ile-de-France in the middle of the Seine in Paris: historic buildings, exclusive apartments, eye-watering property prices. Instead it manages to squeeze a complete panorama of Latvia into just less than 200 hectares.
“This is where we have our ghost, Charlotte,” says Egons Mednis, pointing at the end of a corridor on the first floor of Dikļi Manor, “she's from the seventeenth century.”
Skonto Prefab is a prefabricated concrete elements producer, founded in 2002 and based at an 8-hectare manufacturing site in Salaspils near Riga. But that's not where we are today. Concrete may be extremely useful but it is not the most poetic of materials. It would be hard to compose an Ode to Concrete or paint a magnificent landscape full of prefabricated concrete, even if it was livened up with a few dashes of steel reinforcement and cross-laminated timber.
June 12 sees the start of the third annual conference run by the NATO Strategic Communications Center of Excellence (STRATCOMCOE) in Rīga.
It is generally assumed that the chief benefit of running a profitable business is the ability to extract that profit and spend it on yourself in a manner that is either modest, immodest or downright luxurious, according to the level of profit achieved - and one's own appetite for the finer things in life.
With so much attention currently focused on parliamentary elections due to take place October 6 - despite the common opinion that that they will result in very little change - it is possible that some more important, if less obviously significant events are taking place under our noses right now.
Asked to explain their success in business, many of the more modest multi-millionnaires in the world say it was to a large extent a matter of being “in the right place at the right time”. One of the other popular sayings among high-fliers is “You make your own luck”.
Marshall Billingslea, the Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing at the United States Department of Treasury, was recently in Rīga and is clearly keeping a keen eye on developments in the Latvian banking sector following the collapse of ABLV bank and subsequent efforts to clean up the sector and shed the country's image as a global money-laundering hub.
Children like to climb things. It might be a tree, a climbing frame, the stairs. In the case of Linda Riekstiņa-Šnore it was a wooden ladder leading to the loft of a tiny wooden house in the countryside beyond the city of Alūksne.
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.
No-one other than a serious fan of oil terminals and shunting yards would claim Venstpils is the most picturesque place in Latvia in February. Here, across the River Venta from the holding tanks, shunting yards and cranes is the city itself, which is certainly an improvement, if not exactly Shanghai. A driving blizzard and a temperature of -16 Celsius chills the large fiber-glass cows along the promenade that are an alleged tourist attraction.
Journalists passing through Latvia occasionally ask me who is the most influential person in the country. I have little hesitation in replying: "Roberto Meloni."
Lielvārde is a small town with a big name in Latvia, being best-known for its association with the epic poem Lāčplēsis about the eponymous Latvian hero. But to Juris Ščerbickis of D8 Corporation, this place on the banks of the River Daugava has associations other than battles with the Black Knight.
Over coming months, LSM will be running a weekly series of features about some of Latvia's most successful and innovative exporting companies. We have been visiting them at locations all across Latvia and hearing about the places they say are important to them. The series is produced in cooperation with The Red Jackets, the organization championing Latvia's leading export companies.
Independent publishing house Vagabond Voices has published a new English-language podcast featuring acclaimed Latvian man of letters Pauls Bankovskis talking about his work and the experience of seeing your work in translation.
"This is to certify..." begins a typical Pateicības raksts, or, perhaps the marginally inferior "This is to recognize..." or "This is to acknowledge..."
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.
The Baltic states are center stage at the London Book Fair taking place in the English capital April 10-12. As well as the trade fair itself, a wide program of linked events at various locations are promoting Latvian culture and business. LSM editor Mike Collier will bring you a series of audio reports from participants and visitors.