Travelling Blog

Travelling Blog · 01.08.2025

Zeimuls is Latgalian and means ‘pencil’. Zeimuls is also the name of the creative centre for children and young people in Rēzekne, a town with around 27,000 inhabitants in eastern Latvia in Latgalia. Directly opposite the medieval remains of a castle belonging to the Livonian Order stands a futuristic building where children and young people aged four and above can discover their talents. Headmistress Līga Springa explains that around 1,600 children can discover their talents here in 80...

Travelling Blog · 31.07.2025

Zanda Trukšāne is an entrepreneur, marketing expert, customer advisor, product developer and quality manager. Above all, however, she is a farmer and believes in the power of nature. She wants to make products that bring the energy of nature into kitchens and onto plates. Together with her husband, she left the capital city of Riga in 2016 to devote herself to her parents' farm in Ludza, Latgale, after completing her studies in economics and finance. ‘We wanted to return to Ludza in Latgale...

Travelling Blog · 30.07.2025

Latgale, one of Latvia's four historical regions, has had an eventful history. Originally inhabited by East Baltic tribes, the region was conquered in the 13th century by the Teutonic Order and its predecessors. This was followed by centuries of Polish, Lithuanian and Russian rule. Today, the region lies directly on the border with Russia and Belarus and struggles with economic challenges such as high unemployment and little industry. Nevertheless, Līga Kondrāte from Ludza is optimistic about...

Travelling Blog · 27.07.2025

Lenin's Head on the Missile Base From 1961 to 1989, there was a Soviet nuclear missile base in Zeltini in north-east Estonia with four launch pads for medium-range ballistic missiles. Their range was given as over 2000 kilometres. They could therefore have reached many important European capitals. Fortunately, these weapons were never used. It was the Cold War and around 300 military personnel spent 38 years here preparing for a possible emergency. Gunita Paleja has lived her entire life near...

Travelling Blog · 26.07.2025

Three generations of a Seto family live in the small village next to Saatse on a huge property with endless lawns, lush flowers, a large vegetable garden, a greenhouse with tomatoes and a swimming pond - among other things: Sirje (mother), Meelike (daughter) and Hendrik (grandson). The Seto are an indigenous ethnic group in north-eastern Europe. Their historical Setomaa region lies on the present-day border between south-eastern Estonia and the north-western part of Russia. Despite changing...

Travelling Blog · 23.07.2025

Estonia's external borders consist of the land borders with Russia and Latvia as well as the several thousand-kilometer-long coastline to the Baltic Sea. However, the Estonian border guard is concentrated on the 338-kilometre-long Russian Estonian border. In Estonia, the tasks of the border guard and the police are carried out by one authority. The official name is Politsei- ja Piirivalveamet, i.e. Police and Border Guard Board. A visit to the border guard staff in Saatse in south-east Estonia....

Travelling Blog · 21.07.2025

In the Cultural Capital of the Finno-Ugric peoples Narva is not only a Russian city, but also a melting pot of different cultures. Time and again, migration has brought new people to the city and entire peoples have moved back and forth to regions with better living conditions. They left their mark everywhere and influenced the respective culture. "There are many people with Finno-Ugric roots in Narva, but they all think they are Russian. Some don't even know where their ancestors come from,"...

Travelling Blog · 19.07.2025

The cultural platform ‘Narva Art Residency (NART)’ has selected the internationally renowned Ukrainian artist Ihor Tkachivskyi to create and install his large-scale sculpture ‘The Joy of Being Human’ in Narva. The sculpture will deal with the five senses and focus on the human body as the most valuable thing we have. The 43-year-old comes from the south-west of Ukraine. He recently arrived in Narva and will be working on this six-part monumental sculpture made of Corten steel until...

Travelling Blog · 17.07.2025

In Estonia's schools, Estonian and no longer Russian is to be the language of instruction in future. People in Narva, a city in north-east Estonia directly on the Russian border, are particularly affected by this law. Russian is the mother tongue for 98 per cent of the inhabitants. Denis Bjorkland, an employee of the city administration in Narva, emphasises that all children and young people in Estonia must speak Estonian, including in Narva. ‘But this reform should have come 20 years ago,’...

Travelling Blog · 16.07.2025

Narva is the easternmost city in Estonia and the European Union. Russian is the mother tongue of 98 per cent of the population. Narva has the highest unemployment rate and the lowest average income in the country. ‘Narva was forgotten by Estonia,’ says local journalist Aleksei Ivanov during a tour of his city. ‘That changed in 2014 with the start of the Russian war against Ukraine.’ Suddenly, Narva moved to the centre of world politics. The reason: only the Narva River separates Russia...