6 minute read
Places We Go: Latvia
Dance, Nature, and Cultural Splendor
A small group from Camphill Village traveled over the summer to Latvia to experience the country’s rich history and culture, stunning palaces and natural beauty, and to witness a very special festival that welcomes tens of thousands of performers and spectators every five years into Latvia’s capital city Riga.
Irena Valujeva, Nadja Jiquet and her daughter Lyra, Nora Nickle, and Mishka Zuckerman attended the Nationwide Latvian Song & Dance Festival together, saw parades around the event, visited museums, and traveled the countryside for almost three weeks spanning late June and mid-July. The main attraction, of course, was the festival—celebrating its 150th year— but the group made the most of every day.
“Irena and Nadja thought it was good for me to come to Latvia with them because I haven’t been to other countries since I was a baby in Bulgaria, where I was born,” said Nora, who described a meaningful experience seeing Bulgaria represented during the festival along with other Balkan and Baltic nationalities. “I saw the people from Bulgaria actually dancing and singing in the Bulgarian language. It made me feel like I had the goosebumps.”
The sets and stages erected throughout Riga—along with the costumes, music, and crowds—composed a spectacle that celebrates a strong tradition of music in Latvia, where Irena is from. The group of travelers also attended a flute and organ concert in the Riga Cathedral, where lives the renowned Dome Pipe Organ, an ornate instrument whose earliest predecessor was once the largest in the world before it was lost to a fire in 1547. It has been rebuilt several times over the last few centuries, and welcomes eminent pipe organ musicians from across the globe.
Once outside of Riga, the group took day trips while staying with Irena’s mother, who is still in Latvia. The group visited the Park of Senses in Latvia’s National Park, where they left their shoes behind to experience different surfaces like mud, a small stream, sand, and wood for almost two hours. Their senses were ignited further at a countryside sauna.
“The spa was nice and cozy,” said Mishka. “We laid on benches inside.”
The benches were all covered in herb leaves, and each of our travelers was wrapped in healing herbs and received a soothing massage with soft brooms. They collected linden flowers to infuse the water for the hot stones used in their sauna treatments, and rested with mugs of linden tea and honey by a wood fireplace. Nora and Nadja opted to take a swim in the pond before departing the sauna premises.
The group visited palaces, and enjoyed a day buried in sand on the beach at Riga’s Bay. They attended an exhibit featuring 500 mittens and gloves knitted by more than 260 participants from 10 countries.
They also visited an amber exhibit; amber is Latvia’s national stone, and Irena has fond memories of digging for amber as a child. The group participated in a felting workshop (and returned a second time because they enjoyed it so much), saw an amazing sand sculpture exhibit, and did ceramics. Wherever they traveled, there was art to create and behold. What’s more, there were many storks enjoying the summer weather from their giant nests overlooking the roadways and countryside.
“It was awesome seeing a lot of things like Latvian stores, and the fountain,” said Mishka. “My favorite thing was the Latvian clothes. They were colorful.”
Irena is looking forward to returning to Latvia with our friend Brooke next time, and she was glad to create new friendships with Mishka and Nora this time around.
“We have become very good friends,” she said. “Every day was really special.”
Nora says she enjoyed seeing so many things, and hopes to return to Europe to check off the next destination on her list: Spain.
