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Published: October 20th 2023
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Just before the border between Lithuania and Latvia we take the exit to Paluše to visit the Aukštaitija National Park. It is near the border with Belarus. In Paluše sits the office of the park, where you can find guides. The office is closed however. The chance to cross by accident the border with Belarus is nihil. Still we don’t like to walk into the kalashnikoved friends of comrade Aleksandr Lukashenko. So we decide to change our plans and just walk round the lake.
Clearly it is off season now. Though the weather is fine, the tourists are gone and the boats you can rent, lay unused on land. Wooden statues between the pines and birches remind us of the pagan past of Lithuania.
We continue our trip, pass Ignalina whith its nuclear plant, not working anymore, because Bruxelles wanted Lithuania to close it. Finally we drive over a dirt road and pass the border with Latvia.
Daugavpils We are shocked when we see the old Chroesjtstov flats. They are worn out. Two little girls play in the mud between the flats. Pigeons try to find some food in the trampled grass. A cat jumps upon one of
the pigeons. The bird is too lazy to fly up and trips away. The cat is too lazy to finish its attack and lies down. Here must be our appartment. Somewhere. By mail we have got a code to open a box for the key. It feels like an escaperoom, but then the opposite: an inscape appartment. But where is our appartment?
Finally we find it. It is in flat 19 in the Puškina iela, appartment 49.
When we enter the beton building we smell the stench of the sewage. It is dark. The paint on the grey wall is peeling. Dirt on the floor. A man comes out of his appartment. I say hello to him. He turns his head away. I recognize this. Once I was in an appartment in St. Petersburg it was exactly the same. Doors are three times locked. Linda wants to quitt and look for another appartment. But I am sure the appartment will perfectly fine. Like in St. Petersburg. And indeed: when we open the door, we find a luxurious, well equipped and clean appartment.
The area here is called Church Hill after the churches of four different denominations. The population
is formost Russian, descending from the Russians whom Stalin had sent once to bring the Russian culture into Latvia. When Latvia became independent in 1991 the government wanted the Russians to integrate in the Latvian culture and learn their language. The Russians didn’t do that however. For the Latvian government it was reason to let the Russians alone and to refuse to invest in the development and infrastructure of this area.
It is a strange sensation to walk here. A woman looks down at us from behind her window. When we look up, she hastily closes her curtain. In the nearby grocery some women peep in our basket to see what we have bought. As soon as we look back they turn their head.
One of the four churches attracts our attention: The NovoStroyensky Church of Resurrection, Holy Virgin and St. Nikola. When we walk in a priest in a black, wide robe immediately stands in front of us. He points to Linda and shakes his head. Linda wears sports pants and a yellow pullover. Nothing special. But it is not allowed. Meanwhile a woman comes to the rescue with a cloth and wraps it around Linda. Now
we notice all women here are wearing long robes and even scarfs.
The church in itself is jaw dropping. When we look at the icons we are astonished: a whole wall of really old icons. I unpack my camera to make a picture. The woman of the cloth stands immediately in front of me. ‘Please, no pictures’, she says, ‘sorry it is not allowed.’ She is laughing friendly. We talk a bit with the priest. He tells he had been in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Linda triest to find out the denomination of the church. ‘Russian Orthodox?’, she asks. The woman shakes her head. ‘We are… and then we cannot understand what she says. Later Linda finds out that they are “Old Believers”, a denomination tracing back even to the original Syrian church.
Actually we did not come to Daugavpils to see the Russian area or the NovoStroyensky Church of Resurrection, Holy Virgin and St. Nikola. We did come however for the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center. Rothko was born here in Daugavpils, but already soon left Latvia for the US. It is a modern building with some original paintings of Rothko and there is a nice exhibition on
his life. Last year I sat five minutes in a dark room in front of a painting of Rothko to undergo the effect of the colors. It did not work. Now it is the same, I have to admit.
Next to the museum is the Daugavpils Fortress. It is built ‘on the orders of tsar Alexander I on the eve of the Napoleontic wars’, I read in the Lonely Planet. We walk a bit around the citadel with its four gates named after Russian royals and embellished with Gothic and Egyptian motives.
Then we leave Daugavpils and drive via the A6 to the northwest in the direction of Riga. Before Riga we leave the A6 and drive in the direction of Madona. We get hungry. Along the road we find a restaurant. There is only one choice, but it is nice. For two meals we pay only nine euro. Finally we arrive at Cēsis, a charming little town in between the woods.
Cēsis The advance of getting a code to get the key for your appartment is that you feel independent. The other side of the coin is that you meet no one to talk with.
You might miss the contact with the local people. Now it is Hotel Katrina in the Lielā Katrīnas iela which mails us the code to get the key. Special however is that it is the key for the whole hotel, including the reception. There in no one. We feel like we are the owners of the hotel.
However taciturn the aliens in Daugavpils, here in Cēsis it is completely the opposite. While walking through the town looking for the tourist office a woman begins to talk to us.
‘Have you seen the gallery with Latvian art allready?’, she says. ‘No?’
‘Actually we are looking for the tourist office’, I say.
‘Ok, that is around the corner. But first you have to see the gallery. It will close at five. Don’t miss it.’ She points to the entrance.
The paintings and sculptures in the gallery show the spirituality of the Latvian world. Actually we like it. After a while the conservator begins to talk with us. ‘How did we find the gallery?’, he asks. ‘Are we interested in Latvian art?’
He tells that he lived in the US before, but that he came back. ‘More and more young people
leave the country’, he says. ‘That is a pity. We should stop them.’
Then the tourist office. The young lady behind the counter is even more talketive. She knows how to sell her country.
‘Are you a real Latvian?’, I ask.
She begins to laugh. She pushes her breasts forward and takes a imposing pose. ‘Yesssss!
Finally at the Museum of Scandinavian and Baltic medical herbs we meet someone who is the most talketive of them. Again a young women. Enthusiastically and friendly she tells that the people around Cēsis collect the herbs themselves and sell them to a company. Specially the grasslands are suitable. The museum is very informative and well documented by the way.
What a nice and interesting people here. And what a nice town.
Gauja National Park It is still beautiful weather: 25
0C. A perfect day to hike across the Gauja National Park near Cēsis. There is a campsite near the entrance, perfectly located along the mighty Gauja river, which swings across the forest as if it were the Amazon itself. In te past the river was used by the Hanse league. The campsite is empty now. Off season.
Pines as high as flats alternate with birches, oaks, alders and maples. Lower are spindle trees, meadow sweets, mint, yarrow, cyclamen, creeping jenny, solidago, small scabious and all kinds of mushrooms. The ground is fully covered with mosses. At some spots there are swamps with crystal clear water, fed by a higher located spring. Beavers leave their traces. It is like a fairy tale world.
It is painful to leave. But we do. Via the A3 we drive to the North. To Estonia.
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