TINA PICOTES VISITS LATVIJAS REPUBLIKA

Tina Picotes walking across Riga streets

Tina Picotes is visiting the Latvijas Republika, one of the three Baltic Republics. She wants to explains us lots of things about this wonderful country.

Latvija, officially the Latvijas Republika or Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, and Belarus to the southeast, as well as a maritime border to the west alongside Sweden. Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Latvia is a democratic parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga and Latvian is the official language. 

More information: Latvia

Latvians and Livs are the indigenous people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the only two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language and musical traditions. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. As a consequence of centuries of Russian rule (1710–1918) and later Soviet occupation, both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans and Jews.

Tina Picotes in Cesis Castle in Riga, Latvija

Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has also brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians.

The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918. However, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II.  

In 1940, the country was forcibly incorporated into the Soviet Union, invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in 1941, and re-occupied by the Soviets in 1944 to form the Latvian SSR for the next fifty years. 

The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule. It ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991.

More information: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia

Tina Picotes visiting Riga at night

The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, along with Couronians, Selonians and Semigallians, which formed the ethnic core of modern Latvians together with the Finnic Livonians. 

Henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the country's name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. 

The terms inspired the variations on the country's name in Romance languages from Letonia and in several Germanic languages from Lettland.

The sole official language of Latvia is Latvian, which belongs to the Baltic language group of the Indo-European language family. Another notable language of Latvia is the nearly extinct Livonian language of the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family, which enjoys protection by law; Latgalian, referred to as either a dialect or a distinct separate language of Latvian, is also formally protected by Latvian law but only as a historical variation of the Latvian language. Russian, which was widely spoken during the Soviet period, is still the most widely used minority language by far. 

More information: Lonely Planet 

A true portrait should, today and a hundred years from today, 

the Testimony of how this person looked 

and what kind of human being he was. 

Philippe Halsman