Krista Draveniece: To me, Latvia smells like rain and tastes like freshly baked schlandrausis

A rosy sunset in a quietly rustling sea, the smell of freshness in the forest, slowly enjoying a peaceful walk, the best songs of Imanta Kalniņš, Streič’s “Likteņdzirns” and the magic of Midsummer’s Eve – these are the feelings of my home in Latvia. To me, Latvia tastes like herbal teas and smoothies, to me Latvia smells like freshly fallen rain. Latvia reads in the lines of Ellsberg’s poetry. Latvia is green, beautiful and free.

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On a daily basis, we are chasing a too fast life and there is no time to think about it, so today we will lay white tables and sit with our loved ones for a moment. We have a lot to be thankful for, a lot to celebrate and a lot to smile about.

I was born in 1992 and I never thought that I would worry about the dangers of war. I never thought I would read news about death and cruelty every day, but this is our reality today. We live in such a world and nothing changes.

I hope that this holiday may not mean as much to my children as it does to us today, I hope that they will not have such a clear sense of why we have white tables on May 4, because it will mean that they are safe.

We Latvians, a small and strong nation, are unique with our traditions, language, with our slightly reserved appearance, but our hearts are big. We love, we fight, we always want to prove that we can do better! And we can – both in sports and in culture, Latvians have left their mark on the world map in many different areas.

When I was young, when I was working in Germany in the summers, my mother asked me, maybe I should marry some handsome Fritz here and stay in a country where the tax system is organized, where salaries are higher, the streets are cleaner and the grass is greener, to which I replied that I could not imagine a scenario in which my children don’t know Ligo songs, where they don’t dance folk dances as a child like mom, where the words Maestro Raimonds Pauls or the phrase “Erik, carry me to the mountain” don’t mean anything to them.

I am proud to be Latvian, I am proud of our history, traditions and everything that the future will bring!

Today, let there be peace and gratitude in your home, reader, and let everyone have the best feeling of Latvia in their heart!

Krista Draveniec
Chief editor of LA.LV

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