Latvia

Latvians and the related Livonians were among the last pagan peoples in Europe until German crusaders — the Livonian Order — conquered the region in the thirteenth century. For the next 700 years Latvia was ruled by others: the Order, Poland-Lithuania, Sweden, and, from the eighteenth century, the Russian Empire, while a German-speaking nobility owned the land and Riga grew as a major Hanseatic and then imperial port.

A national awakening in the nineteenth century produced a Latvian-language press, literature, and choirs. Latvia declared independence in 1918 and secured it in a war against both German and Soviet forces, enjoying two decades as first a democracy and then an authoritarian state before the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact assigned it to the Soviet sphere.

Soviet occupation in 1940, Nazi occupation from 1941 — when the Holocaust destroyed Latvia's Jewish community — and Soviet re-occupation in 1944 followed, with mass deportations to Siberia and an armed "Forest Brothers" resistance. Soviet-era industrialisation brought a huge influx of Russian-speakers, and by 1989 Latvians were barely a majority. Non-violent mass protest — the "Singing Revolution" and the 1989 Baltic Way — helped restore independence in 1991, and Latvia joined NATO and the EU in 2004.

Latvian identity is bound up with the land, the forest, and folk song. The dainas, a vast corpus of short, unrhymed four-line verses, carry pre-Christian myth and everyday wisdom, and the Song and Dance Festival — held every five years, with tens of thousands of choral singers before an audience in the six figures — is on UNESCO's list and is tied to the independence story.

Jāņi, the midsummer festival, is the emotional heart of the year: bonfires, oak and flower wreaths, caraway cheese and beer, and staying up until the sun rises. Amber, "Baltic gold" washed up on the shore, is worked into jewellery and sold everywhere.

Latvians have a reputation, which they accept, for reserve and understatement. Sauna culture, forest walks, mushroom and berry picking, and a strong following for ice hockey and, historically, basketball round out daily life. Religion — Lutheran in the west and centre, Catholic in Latgale, Orthodox among Russians — is present but observance is low.

About a third of Latvia's 1.9 million people live in Greater Riga, the largest city in the Baltic states. Daugavpils in the southeast is largely Russian-speaking; Liepāja and Ventspils are Baltic ports; and much of the country is farmland, forest, and small towns, with a low and ageing population.

The economy is open and services-heavy — transit and logistics, timber and wood products, IT, and finance — closely tied to the EU and the Nordic countries. Emigration of young people since EU accession, and one of the world's lowest birth rates, have shrunk the population, and security anxiety about Russia, on whose border Latvia sits, runs through public life.

Daily life is quiet and outdoors-friendly: the commute, the market, the sauna, the summer at a country house or on the coast, and long light evenings in June set against dark, indoor winters.

Latvian cooking is northern and seasonal, built on rye bread, potatoes, dairy, pork, fish, and forest foods. Dark sourdough rye is eaten at every meal; sklandrausis, a sweet carrot-and-potato tart, is a Kurzeme speciality; and grey peas with speck (pelēkie zirņi ar speķi) is close to a national dish.

Cold beet soup (aukstā zupa), a shocking-pink summer soup of kefir and beetroot; smoked and pickled Baltic fish and sprats on rye; cottage cheese (biezpiens) in many forms; and rupjmaizes kārtojums, a dessert of rye breadcrumbs, cream, and cranberry, are all traditional.

Kvass, a fermented rye-bread drink, is popular in summer; Rīgas Melnais balzams (Riga Black Balsam), a dark, bitter herbal liqueur, is the national spirit; and craft beer and cider have grown fast.

Riga is the centrepiece. The medieval Old Town — the reconstructed House of the Blackheads, the Three Brothers, St Peter's and the Dome, the Town Hall Square, and the winding lanes — is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the "quiet centre" just outside the walls has one of the finest concentrations of Art Nouveau architecture in the world, especially along Alberta and Elizabetes streets. The Central Market fills old Zeppelin hangars, and the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum on the city's edge gathers farmsteads from across the country.

Jūrmala, a short train ride west, is a strung-out seaside resort of wooden villas and a pine-backed white-sand beach. East of Riga, the Gauja National Park around Sigulda and Cēsis has castles — the red-brick tower of Turaida, medieval Cēsis — a river valley, caves, and a Soviet-built bobsleigh track you can ride.

Rundāle Palace, a Baroque country residence by the architect of the Winter Palace, is the "Latvian Versailles." The Kurzeme coast offers Cape Kolka, where two seas meet, and Liepāja's abandoned Tsarist and Soviet naval base at Karosta. In the east, Latgale is "the land of blue lakes," with the Aglona basilica, a major Catholic pilgrimage site, and Daugavpils, birthplace of the painter Mark Rothko, who has a museum in the town's old fortress.