The biggest challenge for Barta rafters is to pass through the bridge / Article

The rafts started to be tied at the glamping site “Bartas Krasts” already on Friday, so that today, May 5, they could already be floated to the “Ods” recreation base, thus celebrating the beginning of both spring and the tourist season. At noon, a boat trip will also start from the Mazkalēti bridge.

Raimonds Reinis, one of the organizers of the Barta boatmen’s festival, distributes hats to the men with great determination so that they can continue their work. Old photographs show that the hat was an essential attribute of rafters.

“Let’s try to go for a new record – if last year there were eight plenes, then this year we will try at least nine, if not all ten. This year Bārta is faster, the water level is higher. One of the main helmsmen was Māris Ķudis, who was standing in the front. The biggest challenge – go through the bridge,” Reinis says.

You have to cross the bridge with a raft about 60 meters long, which is made from separate parts in the river and then gradually connected. The raft is scheduled to start at ten in the morning, but various activities will start earlier. Those interested are also invited to observe them from the shore. Speaking of the bridge, there is also an invitation.

“The girls threw flowers to the Gauja rafters, if someone does it, we will be very happy. It looked lovely,”

asks Guntis Rolis, one of the implementers of the rafters’ idea.

Young guys are interested in rafting. Uģis Urtāns has come from Ropaži, he was invited by Grobiņa’s friends. He was interested in this profession in Ropaži, so he also knows how to talk about tree rafting.

“I was interested in this topic once when I was making a musical album about rafters. It was in another river, the Great Jugla river. I thought it was a unique opportunity to participate in such an event and see how it happens in real life. It’s one thing to read about this profession in literature, but it’s quite another to enjoy it on your own skin,” admits Urtāns.

For the second time, Rinald Ķudis is participating in the Barta rafters’ festival. He was inspired by his father.

“Last year, dad invited me, it was a free day, I called a couple of friends, we came. There is a magic here. Active recreation. I doubt if I could do anything better in the apartment. I myself served in the army, we have six days off, we should use the time,” said Ķudis.

“The most difficult thing would be to bring the logs if you had to do it by hand, you have to cut down the trees yourself, find the right logs, let alone with a horse.”

However, Kārlis Lubins, a barman, experienced exactly such scenes as he was carried by trees and floated down the Barta River to Liepāja.

“The last rafts went out in 1953. As a boy, I was forbidden to walk, but now I wouldn’t let the children, but what boy wouldn’t want to go over the raft! In 1953, 1700 cubic meters went down the river,” remembers Lubin.

Rafting starts near the bridge of the Barta River, from which a landscape typical of May opens up, the leaves of the trees start to turn green, but the banks of the river are abundant with the white tufts of yew bushes, mayflies bloom and the surrounding meadows are covered with carpets of yellow dandelions.