I have now joined the ranks of the Latvians, having taken flowers to my dean for her name day. (See previous post.) This extremely Latvian behavior involves both the giving of flowers and the recognition of a name day. You just can't get more Latvian than that. In her office, there were already bouquets galore, a nice spread of salmon on bruschetta, Lithuanian cream cake (of course), Latvian sausages, sweet cheese, crab salad, cookies, and coffee. You have to give it to the Baltics: they celebrate at the drop of a hat, and the celebrations involve great food. And lots of it.
Last week there were three holidays in Latvia. 1 May is Workers' Day, May Day elsewhere in the world. I am unsure if this is a legacy of Soviet times -- I do know that in Moscow, this was a day for a big parade that showed off military hardware -- but here it seems that it is theoretically about workers. I didn't see a lot of celebrating for this, but this might be analagous to the United States' Labor Day, which is really an excuse for a three-day weekend. For non-American readers, Labor Day is always the first Monday in September, and it (un)officially marks the end of summer.
The second holiday, 4 May, is Independence Day, though I am not sure that it's called that. I don't exactly know what the official name is, which is mildly confusing because Latvia has two independence days, as near as I can tell. The first one in 18 November, which marks the birth of the Latvian nation in 1918 (100 years next year! Bring on the cake and coffee!). Every city in the country has a 18 Novembra iela (18 November Street), which tells you that this is an important day. The May holiday marks the independence from the Soviet Union, which for Latvians is an equally important day. There was considerable fuss on this day; the Latvian flag was hung everywhere (all buildings have flagpoles attached to them for this purpose), there was singing and dancing in the city square, there were special concerts, there was a craft fair. It's a big deal.
The third, 9 May, celebrates the end of the World War II, and this one is celebrated primarily by Russians in Latvia; at the time, after all, Latvia was still a Soviet republic. It is difficult for an American to fully comprehend the colossal devastation and loss of life that the Soviet Union endured for the five years of war. Estimates are about 27 million deaths, though nobody honestly knows. There were a number of very old men and women with their medals on their jackets. They are perhaps the children of war veterans because the actual veterans would now be in their late 80s and 90s. Everybody else wore ribbons in orange and black, which gave the whole affair a Hallowe'en air, though I am sure that was not the intent. The color of the ribbons must mean something, though I am not sure what. There were enormous numbers of flowers laid at the WWII memorial in the park adjacent to my flat, and there were fireworks that evening. I know this because they started outside my window within thirty seconds of my going to bed. I of course got up and watched them, figuring that I would be a little fuzzy in my 8:00 morning class the next day, and indeed I was.
One of the pleasures of being in Latvia is drinking the endless beers that are available here. You haven't heard of any of them. My new favorite is a light beer, perfect for summer, brewed in nearby Kraslava ("KRAHSS-lah-vuh") and called, logically enough, Kraslava. There's also a dark beer that I need to try. Valmiermuīža ("VOLL-meer-mwee-zhuh") is another superb beer, recommended by former Fulbrighter Steven Vickers. It is dark and foamy; you sort of eat it rather than drink it. I think I've mentioned Lielvārdes ("LEEL-var-des," just like it's spelled) already as well. Latvia is not a wine-producing country so much, though I am told that the northernmost winery in Europe is actually in Latvia. But you can get great wine here from all over Europe. French and Italian wines would be the obvious choices, but I have discovered table wines from Moldova. Moldova is one of the great wine nations of the world, and you probably didn't know this. Some wine experts say that the best wines in the world come from Moldova, but they are totally unknown because it was another Soviet republic that never exported its goods. Others among you may not even be aware that there is such a country as Moldova, but there is. Consult a European map. That is, consult a recent European map.
Though I have not explored them much, there are lots and lots of vodkas from Russia that you have never heard of if you're American. My take is that if the label is in Cyrillic, then it's a real Russian vodka and maybe not exported at all. The range of vodkas is remarkable, as is the Russian capacity for drinking it. My Russian comrades are more than happy to share their expertise in this burgeoning field.
Spring is slowly springing in Latvia, and one of the manifestations of this is that daylight hours are extremely long. Latvia is pretty far north, as you see if you look at a map of Europe. Maine, by contrast, is at the same latitude as southern France, which usually surprises Mainers because the weather sure isn't comparable. This means that here in Latvia dusk occurs later and later and later. Currently it's at about 10:30 pm, which is very disorienting to me. Darkness at home is a visual signal that it's time to go to bed, but it just doesn't get dark here. And we are still a month away from the summer solstice, which is a huge celebration in Latvia. Daybreak is about 5:00. My biological clock will be permanently altered by the time I go home.
For the record, Latvia, like most of Europe, uses what Americans call military time. 10:30 pm is actually 22:30 -- that is, the twenty-second hour of the day. 3:00 pm is 15:00, 6:15 pm is 18:15, and so on. This takes some getting used to. It took me a month to figure out that all you do is subtract 12 from the number that looks odd, and you get American time. I am a bit slow, but now I manage it fine.
My phone company, LMT, has given all of its customers free internet all week on their smartphones. To what do we owe this corporate benevolence? Why, the world hockey championships, of course. LMT wants to assure all Latvians that they will not miss a minute of the Latvian national team beating all the other European teams -- which so far they have done. I don't know what to make of this corporate policy other than to find it delightful. Today Latvia is playing the United States. I have prudently chosen to not take sides, a fact that bewildered my adult English class. As you can imagine, they have taken sides.
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