41% of the country is forested, and that's a lot when you think about it. On the weekends, and especially in summer, Riga's streets are eerily quiet, because most residents will rather spend their free time at their country properties, gorging on forest-berries and collecting meadow-flowers for tea. Latvians are still very closely connected to nature, its cycles and rhythms. Home grown produce is very popular, as is foraging (see Sēņošana), and the wildlife you can come across there is astonishing. Wolves and lynx, hedgehogs and moose, storks which migrate from Africa, even bears are slowly growing in number.
Approximately every five years the Song (and Dance) Festival takes place in Latvia. This isn't just some carols-by-candlelight-esque affair; this involves a final concert with more singers than spectators, a whole city proudly dressed in folk costume for a week, impassioned impromptu singing on public transport, and a significant quinquennial reinvigoration of a powerful, if not sometimes inconspicuous, Latvian self-pride.
No comments:
Post a Comment