In 2008, the Latvian government created a web page to mark its 90th anniversary. It contained daily news about events as well as background information, history, interesting stories and, of course, bloggers. As Latvian Institute Director, I was asked to be one of them. I wrote about one blog a week from spring until the […]
#8 Is Latvia old? Now that Latvia has reached its 90th birthday, one wonders…is that a lot or not? Believe it or not, by global standards, we are respectable senior citizens. If you go by the official founding dates of the 200 or so sovereign states in the world, the Republic of Latvia is older […]
#13 The day the sun stands still Each year, toward the end of June, the sun stands still in Latvia. Actually, it stands still everywhere in the world, because that’s what ‘solstice’ means in Latin – the moment when the sun stops moving in one direction and starts moving in another. In the Northern Hemisphere […]
# 17 The land that sings (and dances) Latvia’s Song and Dance Celebration is upon us, and everyone in Latvia who isn’t singing and dancing on a stage somewhere, is singing along and tapping their feet in the audience. Over 35,000 people will be performing in a wide variety of events, and hundreds of thousands […]
#21 Mr. Ambassador In 1937 a 26-year old Latvian diplomat named Anatols Dinbergs went to New York to serve as Vice Consul. When the Soviets occupied Latvia in 1940, Dinbergs, like most Latvian diplomats abroad, refused to return. Since the United States did not recognize the Soviet annexation of Latvia, but did recognize the Republic […]