Letter from Rīga

On arrival in Latvia’s capital, the city declares itself to be old and modern, proud of its Art Nouveau quarter, elegant and clean, planned and logical, on either side of the Daugava river, festooned with parklands, and the language is like nothing I have ever heard.

As to the people, the old and the very young everywhere look alike. Among men, one type is thin and wiry; they look like a Giacometti sculpture that has had a car accident. Their asymmetric faces have strong character, or if not that, are unforgettable. Others look like decathletes, and still others resemble body builders, weightlifters or wrestlers. Nearly half of Latvia’s population are Russians, so that could cover the last group. Line up 28 young women, and they would look like they come from 28 European countries. In other words, there is nothing characteristic of Latvians, other than that they are generally friendly, and accept that people who are not from Latvia are very unlikely to learn their language.

A man who sells us beers on a river cruise tells us that Latvian is one of the oldest languages in the world. He also says Latvians are in decline, and within three generations will disappear. I suggest Latvians need more children, and then regret the remark. “We need more dancing”, he says, making some pointed gestures, and then moves off to sell drinks to other passengers.

Compare lab dien, melna kahvija lūdzu, loti labi, paldies with tere, must kohv palun, väga hästi, tänan (hello, black coffee please, very good, thank you) and there you have a language divide as sharp as the Latvian border with Estonia, at least on a map.

Other than a sign saying “Latvija”, the drive from north to south reveals no change in landscape. There are the same stretches of forest on either side of the road, fields sown in grass for hay or grain, scattered farm buildings, the occasional village or settlement, some in good repair and prosperous, others, run down, and, perhaps, more common in Latvia, abandoned Soviet-era white silicate brick ruins.

In both countries, the roads are good and motorists in a hurry - especially those behind the wheel of an Audi, VW or a Volvo. But the signage is not so good in Latvia; perhaps, the authorities do not want foreigners visiting their national parks and scenic attractions. Even the navigation apps make it tricky to get anywhere in Latvia.

The weekend in Rīga is the scene of a huge dance festival, lots of men and women of varying ages in very similar folk costumes to the ones I had already seen in Estonia. The day is a scorcher, and everyone looks hot and bothered in woollen skirts and heavy trousers. Staring at the dancers in the heat, I notice that the geometric designs on belts and head gear also look very similar to Estonian traditional designs.

Pondering this, a visit to the ruins of a castle that German-speaking crusaders built at the end of the 12th century. This was the beginning of an invasion of Latvian and Estonian territory, creating a region called Livonia that held that name in various guises: through the Livonian war (mid-1500s) in which the local population halved, through Polish-Lithuanian and then Swedish rule into the early 1700s. After that, Livonia was a governorate of the Tsarist regime, initially under Peter the Great.

Here lies part of the explanation for certain cultural similarities between Estonia and Latvia, despite the stark difference in languages. Even before the Livonian Order and Brothers of the Sword and other crusading monks invaded, there were contacts between Baltic peoples and Finnic peoples. Words in Estonian like piim (milk), maksma (to pay) and maja (house) look to have Latvian / Lithuanian or an earlier Baltic language origin.

This comes back to Valdur Mikita’s point about another divide, between the more traditional forest culture of the south of Estonia, and the “sea people” of the north and west of Estonia who in his view are more Germanic in their manner and thinking. Travelling in both parts of Estonia, I notice no difference between one type of Estonian or another, and crossing back to the north of the Latvian border, am glad to be home.