Why do latvians

However, at first Latvia was only independent until when it was added to USSR and remained a part of it up until Although we are super grateful for this regained independence, we are more keen on celebrating the 18th of November.

And we also include the years in the USSR when counting the age of the country; therefore, our country will turn this autumn, not 50, and not Have you ever looked at the Christmas tree that you decorate each year and thought to yourself: why and since when do we do it? Latvians have an answer to that! In , the first Christmas tree was decorated in Riga.

The local merchants danced around it and later on set it on fire. Always feels good to see how a small country can compete with the world champions and other big countries, whose population and resources are much, much bigger than ours. The celebration involves consuming a lot of beer and cheese with cumin, singing Latvian folk songs, doing some fortune telling and sitting around a bonfire.

The bravest ones can even run and jump over the bonfire. Yes, you read it right and I will never stop enjoying how much this surprises people.

This tradition tends to depend on the religion and region you are from, but the idea behind this weirdly named festival is that once a year in summer all families go to a cemetery and remember their beloved ones who are not in this world anymore.

It is a big celebration and it takes place in each cemetery in a different week, so that you can manage to visit several cemeteries and meet different relatives. We also have the widest waterfall in Europe — Ventas Rumba. It is meters wide, and during spring floods it sometimes reaches meters. It is possible to walk over it and to swim in it; therefore, the waterfall is a quite popular attraction during summers.

But Latvians do not stop at what has been obtained from our ancestors or nature. We are continuing to invent and create. In Europe, we are the third entrepreneurial hotspot, right after Sweden and Estonia.

Moreover, according to World Economic Forum, Latvia is the best when looking at the total early entrepreneurial activity. With almost km of coast, Latvia has tons of beaches. Over half its territory is covered by forest, so Latvia is a very green place.

Locals love to pick mushrooms and berries, and at Midsummer young couples duck into the woods to look for the mythical flowering fern. No such plant exists, but the search goes on…. One of the attractions of the port city Liepaja is a night in jail. The haunting Karosta district offers accommodation in the old military lockup complete with Soviet-style treatment. Latvia has a huge capital relative to its tiny population, with over one third of the population living in Riga. Alberta iela is a street almost entirely created by Art Nouveau genius Mikhail Eisenstein, and his son film director Sergei Eisenstein was one of the founders of modern cinema.

From birch sap juice in spring to berries in summer and mushrooms in autumn, Latvians are a nation of foragers. Follow Eng. Latest news. MP vaccination made mandatory in Latvia 8. Spain, Malta, Vatican remain on Latvia's travel 'green list'. Latvia has EU's third-highest proportion of smokers in the population.

Three for the Weekend: Latvian vibes.