I enjoyed very much this journey in Latvia and Lithuania: Jérôme discovers these countries 9 years after their independences: beautiful landscapes and nice encounters.
In Latvia singing is a very popular tradition: Tiga Bariss explains that the song is the soul of the Latvian folk. Her daughter Ana Bariss will participate in the great encounters of choirs: Janis Baltings explains that the "dainas " are the traditional songs of Latvia and we see some choirs singing dainas.
Mara Upmane-Holsteine is a rock singer of the band "Astro'n'out" and enjoys also singing: Toms Roiss, the bass player of this band tells that in the Soviet time the country was closed, but now the borders are open and they can enjoy the influence of other countries.
In Latvia there is a minority of Russian speaking people:
the Russian community lives separated from the Latvian community: there are companies where the Russian people are all the employees, and companies where the Latvian people are all the employees: for example the circus of Riga with mainly Russian speaking artists as Lolita Lipinska explained (the theater received many subsidies from the Soviet governement).
Natalia Morozova, who often travels to Russia to visit their parents, nevertheless feels more affinity with the Russians living in the Baltic countries. Her husband Aleksander Ziluk, a chef, speaks Russian at home but Latvian when he goes to the market.
Now some words about the castle of Rundale: a masterpiece of baroque architecture: Dainuvite Brunere is in charge of the rose garden: 2.600 varieties of roses. Besides there is now a fountain in the gardens (jardin à la Française).
In Lithuania we see a wedding in the forest: the Lithuanian have a good relationship with the nature. Raimunds Klepers is a former forest ranger who manages a piece of forest and shows to the visitors the virtues of the forest.
Lipa Kleppers is making excursions with visitors to look for medicinal herbs.
Petras manages an animal rescue center and takes care for injured animals such as wolves.
The treasure of Lithuania is the amber: Ricardas Lipinskas (manager of Ambermanus) explains that Lithuania is an important producer of amber: in the Curonian Spit we meet an amber hunter who is collecting amber stones in the sea and has a little museum where he shows amber stones with animal fossils.
In the Curonian Spit (Unesco World heritage site),Aurelijus Armonavicus drives the traditional boats of this lagoon.
Romuldas Jasaitis , a forest ranger is taking care for the forests of the isthm and Geliminas Grazulevicus, an ornothologist is observing the migratory birds which are passing in the Curonian Spit.
I enjoyed the encounters of Jérôme with Agnese Klava and her family, with Nicolajs Kuzmins in Jurmala, with Peter Archer (the Emilija Benjamin villa), with Imants Mancmanis in Rundale castle, with Kazys Bimba, the sculptor , with Vytautas Ratkevicius (the Bohemian republic), with Darius Laumenis, with Edvardas , the former prisoner, with Juri Spakovski in Trakal, with Jonas Marozas and Matas Mizgiris in the Curonian spit: very nice encounters with very kind Latvian and Lithuanian men and women.