Vienibas Nams

Vienības Nams ("VEE-eh-nee-bus nams"; "Unity House" in English) is the serious cultural center of Daugavpils. Here is the theater, the concert hall, the public library, the Latvian cultural center, the tourist information office, the souvenir shop, and the USA Information Center, all in one building on the city center square. Oh, and there's a Swedbank with handy cash machines and a museum devoted to Latgale's very own moonshine šmākovkas ("SHMOCK-uv-kuss") for good measure. And the library doubles as a rotating art gallery for local artists. Talk about one-stop shopping!

Built in the 1930s in what I call the Balt Deco style, I think that Vienības Nams was part of the trend at the time to give all Latvian cities a place to put Latvian culture out there for Latvian citizens. This was certainly tied to the nation defining itself culturally. Having existed only since 1918 as an independent state (the Soviets didn't move in until 1940), Latvia worked hard at extolling its Latvian identity. Daugavpils was the second largest city in Latvia, a status which it retains to this day, and the feeling was that it needed a worthy center of cultural activities way out here in the boonies, far from Rīga. It certainly got one.

The theater is somewhat amazing in the number of productions in mounts. It's the only theater in the country where Russian and Latvian actors work side by side, and occasionally productions will be in Latgalian, the old language of Latgale, as well as in Russian and Latvian. There is a production at least once a week and sometimes more often. Generally a show will play one night, and then, I assume, move somewhere else in the country. This means that the average Daugavpilian could see 30 to 40 professional productions a year (assuming that the theater is quieter in the summer). Most American cities ten times the size of Daugavpils could not match that output, and certainly not by the work of a single theater. The range and frequency of shows is remarkable. Comedies, tragedies, classics -- Chekhov to Shakespeare to domestic farces to stand-up one-woman shows -- you name it, Daugavpils Teātris presents it.

 I haven't taken in a lot of theater since I've been here -- not having the language is a severe handicap in this regard -- but I have spent a fair amount of time in the koncertzāle ("KON-sert-zah-luh"), or concert hall. To give you sense of the range of events that happen here, it's worth noting that in the course of ten days, I watched the Belorussian Theater and Dance Company from Minsk perform Swan Lake in the theater, heard the United State Army Band (Europe) perform in the concert hall, and the day after that heard a group of jazz musicians jamming all night in the open space that had cabaret seating set up (and a bar conveniently located next door) as part of Daugavpils' month-long jazz festival. This sort of endless, wildly varied programming is typical. Here are a couple of photos from those last two concerts.

That signage above reads "Fifteenth International Jazz Festival," in case you were wondering, and this jam session was totally cool. Musicians just wandered in and out of the sextet, rotating constantly, and playing whatever struck their fancy. At any time, I am guessing that five nations were represented in each sextet at any given time. In case you didn't know, Poland has a huge jazz culture, and apparently Belarus is not far behind. The U.S. Army band is about as crackerjack an ensemble as you can imagine. Most if not all of the musicians are professional caliber, and they are really disciplined; they are, after all, in the Army.

Ticket prices would make an American green with envy. The full-length ballet was 3 euros (about $3.25). The band concert was free. The cover for the jazz concert was 2 euros ($2.15). The most I have ever paid for a concert here is 6 euros, and that involved a well-known Latvian folk singer and his many musician friends. All 45 of them. I don't know how the ticket prices are set up other than to say that they must be subsidized somehow. A surprising number of concerts are free. If you don't see a ticket price on the poster, you assume that it is.

The nicest thing is that concerts are often scheduled early in the evening. They typically start at 18:00 (6:00 pm) or 18:30 (6:30), so that you're home at a decent hour and your workday tomorrow isn't shot. It also means that it's really easy to bring kids to a concert, and everybody does. Training children from an early age to attend public events like this is an excellent idea in that they learn early on how to behave in such events, and they also learn to support community events like the arts. Latvians get this right, and it shows.