April 2 is the birthday of actor Evald Walters. It has already become a tradition that on this day the celebrations take place in the Town Hall Square of Kuldiga. Sweet tea and the actor’s favorite oatmeal cookies, but bring a good mood. It was the same today – on the artist’s 130th anniversary.
When 130 years ago Planīcas – present Kurmāles of Kuldīga county – Ävalds Walters was born in the parish, Laima put a century-long life, love of work, wisdom, steadfastness, courage, independence, without forgetting humor in his cradle. No one can say who Evald Walters was in one word – for some he was an actor, for others a poet, an archer, a translator, but he is still alive in people’s memories. Well, on Valterīš’s birthday, the meeting place is the same – Kuldīga Rātslaukums, where there is an environmental object “Tea cup
The artist once said about the city of his childhood and youth, Kuldīgas: “I love Kuldīga so much that I only need to say the word “Kuldīga” and I’m already happy.” That is why he also found his country house “Ostus” on this side, which is continued by his son Wright. He says: “I remember that he worked physically until the last moment. He was not afraid of work. Despite the fact that he was an actor and a writer, translated, he really liked to lift stones out of the ground, to grow, to plant.”
The theater godson of the jubilee, actor Jānis Paukštello, also shared his memories. “That’s the procedure when you get accepted in the theater and you become the godson of an older actor, Walter gave me a bribe of bread and a bottle of balm. He said, “John, a bottle of balm for your health. Bread, that you may have work.” He said, ‘If you are needed, you will be found even in the middle of the forest.'”
A book was also republished in the anniversary year “Evalds Walters. A century in a man. Man in the century”. It is made more compact and supplemented with an interview by Lias Guļevskas with Evalds Walters’ son Wright. “One thing I can say. A pure Latvian, those same four lines are the absolute code of Evald Walters – I own my father’s land with all the fields, I can be the master myself, I can plow it myself,” says Gulevska.
Birthday parties in Kuldīga district will end with the opening of a memorial room in Kurmāle parish, but Ävalds Valters invites you every day. The belief is still valid, if you drink tea together, at least a hundred years are guaranteed.
