Rundani

At the farm, I met Andris and Marina. They were there to work as volunteers for the day. Andris told me that he could arrange for me to stay at some friends' place in Rundeni. He made a phone call and everything was fixed.

Rundeni is a little town with a school, a post office and two shops and a church. The city is divided into two districts, one made of housing estate, wooden houses with barns and garden, and the other one made of rows of low-rise building, soviet type architecture.

I left the farm in late morning. The day was so bright and sunny, and even very warm, around 6°C. I crossed many fields on a kind of pathway till a reached a sand road. There were some housing there, small farms and little cottages.

With the sun shining, the colour of grass as turned to golden brown. There was no wind, and the smell of the drying ground was filling the air.

The way was extremely pleasant and I made plenty stop to admire the view. At many occasions I could see herds of deer grazing in the fields, but without tele-photo lens it was impossible to take clean shot.

When I arrived at Rundeni, I made a phone call to Andris, as planned. After a while, a car came to pick me up to drive me to the place I should stay overnight. A told strong man, Stas, came and drove me to a little house where a man was living alone, and was willing to offer me a bed for the night.

Victor is the owner of the house. He is a former tank commander of the soviet army. He served in Afghanistan for many years.

Victor showed me many photos of his companions and the tank he was commanding. I was 9 years old when this was started, so I have no souvenirs of it.

We didn't talk about the war itself and its outcome. It seems that this Afghanistan is for the Russians what Vietnam is for the USA, a money pit and a moral exhaustion for the soldiers.

Victor is a very good D.I.Y man. He was proud of showing me the wood central heating system he created in is house.

He was asking me to translate many Russian words into French cause he has the wish to visit Paris someday. He took pages of words from me, and started to speak to me with some basic words.

I had a good time with him,so I decided to stay one more day with him. I took advantage of the opportunity to have my clothes washed, my orange trouser really needed it. It was also a good opportunity to relax my feet and rest.

I am now close to the end of my trip. From Rundeni, only remained 33km to walk till the arrival point; just two days if I take it easy.

Viežakrūgs and the horse farm

This morning was very dry but not sunny. Exiting  Feimani, I stopped for a coffee break and get some cakes.

Latvia has 3 big chains of supermarket, but they are mainly in big cities. In country side, one can only find little market, kind of family business. In some places, there is only one 20km around. In Latgale, it is sometimes impossible to find one at walking distance from a remote location.

In Latvian they are called "Veikals", which simply means "shop", without any other sign or emblem. They sell almost everything, bread, fruits, dairy products, vegetables, alcohol,  kitchen utensils and other cleaning product.

Leaving Feimani, I entered into a forest area. At first it was a scattered bunch of trees mixed with fields.

At some point, I decided to make a stop. I always make stop at places where I can easily seat without having to take my bag off my back, the best places being benches at bus stops and lying tree trunks.

I found the perfect place and sat there, looking at the amazing scenery around me.

While eating a tasty apple, I was surprised by a Belgian shepard, a beautiful light brown dog. I had one when younger, and those dogs are very attaching.

It was obvious that this dog wasn't a stray animal, it wasn't aggressive at all despite barking at me. I guess it was as surprised as me to see me there.

Nevertheless, I was asking myself where this dog comes from, since it seemed to me that this place was empty of any habitation.

A man came out of the other side of the big pile of trunks and addressed to me in Latvian. Again, I explained him in Russian what I was doing here and where I was going.

The man kindly offered me to come home for a cup of tea. In fact, there was a farm corpus just around the corner. The house was very beautiful and big, made of wood, of course. The basement was painted in green, and the first floor, under the roof, was in a king of orange-brown.

The house was surrounded by a barn, an underground cellar and a sauna.

The man was serene, in his manner of speech but also in the way he was moving. His name is Gunats. We entered the house and sat at the kitchen table. His wife Valentina, was not present at first but joined us later.
We shared some food and talked about the Latvian economys and the cost of living, here and in France. We also compared the situation of pensioners in our respective countries. I found this talk very interesting.

In morning, after a copious breakfast, Valentina, Gunat and the dog accompanied me on the path in the forest. We took some pictures and said goodbye to each other.

I then entered a beautiful forest, covered with a very thick green carpet of moss. In some area, the snow was still present on the ground, even ice. A slight veil of haze was slowing dissipating at the top of trees. A very pleasant flavour was evaporating from the ground, a blend of grass, moss and lichen with a hint of rotten bark pine.

The way indicated by the GPS soon dissipated on the ground, no traces of a path could be seen any more. The map was indicating a clearing from where I could get back to a large path. I made my way through the trees and bushes till I reached this clearing.

There, I found some trunks to seat down.

Around, were a couple of old barns and a house, which seemed totally abandoned. I didn't see any sign of life, except a satellite dish. I stopped there for a drink and eat some of the tasty sandwiches Valentina had prepared for me.

Sunny spells were indicating a change in the weather. I decided to quite my parka to wear lighter clothes. From this day until the end of my trip, the sun would be my companion, unveiling new colours and clear horizon, and warmer temperatures.

Right after this place, were a tiny settlement of 4 houses by a wonderful lake. the lake was surrounded by several little cottages, probably used exclusively in summer time.

The path along the lake was relaxing and lead me the a large sandy road drenched in sunlight.

At a crossroad, I decided to stop again at a bus stop. It was long since I last saw a bus stop, and as the scenery was so beautiful, why not enjoying it. After all, time was on my side, no need to hurry, and I was getting close to the end, so those stops became more and more regular.

I quickly left the sandy road to engaged into a narrow muddy path gong up and down hills, ending in a dead forest of birch trees.

A quite unique scenery. Hundreds of trunks were standing without branches in a middle of a pond.

This enchanting, otherworldly scene was a mixture of lament and hope, denunciation and sublimation.

For  photographic eyes like mine, it became obvious that this would be perfect object for a fine art photography, which I made in black and white, using different adjustment and tuning on Photoshop to achieve a dramatic tense and increase the feeling of desolation.

After catching up an asphalted road, I soon reach the village Lipuski. The village is locted on the banks of a huge lake. The lake was still totally frozen and people were walking on it.

By 5PM, I reached the place I wanted to be, the horse farm.

I was welcomed head in the path by an old German shepard. The dog was obviously used to visitors. Many people were busy taking care of horses. Kristina, a young woman came towards me, and even before I ask anything, she said that she saw me on TV, were they expecting me?

They warmly welcomed me, introduced me to all the people who were there and offered me hot drinks and home made sausages and potatoes.

Kristina is still studying at school, but helps her parents at the farm. he lives here with her grandma too.

Before night came, they took me around to show me the horses. They are raising the only endemic Latgalian horse breed, along with all the other animals you expect to see in a real farm, chicken, goose, pig, goat, rabbit...

If you ever visit this region, make sure you pay a visit to those nice people. The place is easy to find and indicated by a sign on the main road (P56) between Lipuski and Lesinsky [latitude  56°16'51.43"N; longitude  27°30'58.27"E]

Latgale

To me, Latgale is the wildest part of Latvia, and it is my favourite because of its rolling countryside, lakes and forests.

Latgale is one of the poorest region in the EU. I didn't meet there many young people, just few in big villages where there is a school. On my way, I only met old and retired people.

Being retired here doesn't mean that you don't work any more and enjoy the benefit of your pension. Pensions in Latvia are very low, from 80€ to 300€, which means that most pensioners have to grow there own products and breed animals.

As said before, most of people here speaks Russian and Latgalian (Latgalish in Russian). The region has a large population of Russians, and a minority of Polish and Belarusian.

I have never heard about this dialect until I met Albina, a wonderful 86 years old woman. A real babushka!

She lives in an ancient farm corpus with her son, Gunars, a very tall and slim man.

Gunars was very gentle. Albina was only speaking Latgalish, so Gunars was translating it into Russian for me. I definitely lost much in translation.

When I first made my way on the path that was leading me from the road the the farm, Albina came to me with a wonderful smile illuminating her face. 

I soon realized that she wasn't speaking a known language to me. Fortunately, Gunars came out and after I explained me the reason of being at their door step, he said that he could help me.

I didn't  have time to put my bag on the floor that Albina prepared me something to eat and drink.

She cooked me the fishes Gunars had catch earlier in the nearby lake, boiled me a soup, bread and butter and cream.

Albina also had this home-made strawberry jam. I had two plates of it, mixed with fresh cream. She was happy to see how I appreciate all this.

Latvia has this amazing tasty bread. It is called `rupjmaize`.

It's a kind of "black" rye bread, with a special taste, quite strong, spicy, and I really love it.

 With that bread, they also make a soup, which is a desert made with cinnamon and raisins and berries, served with cream. It's delicious.

There is also this amazing beverage, "Kvass" made with fermented bread. It is very low in alcohol less than 0.4°, not noticeable, and totally suitable for children. I really love this beverage.

You can find it in any supermarket, industrially made, but the best remains the home-made one.

 

Albina is a very beautiful woman. I said to her son to tell her that for me she was beautiful. Her reaction was very surprising. She felt confused and embarrassed as would be a young innocent girl. 

She took me by the hand to the corner of her room and pointed me two photographs hanging there.

There were old lavished black and white photos of her as a young woman, and the traditional wedding day photo.

I was stricken by her natural beauty. Not only by her perfect symmetrical features, buy her porcelain doll white face, but by her natural grace and elegance and the sparks she still have now in her eyes.

True beauty always last even after time has done is destructive work.

In the morning, Gunnars walked with me the 10 km to the nearest village, Feimaņi. I had to buy some cigarettes.

We went to one of the 3 shops there. I bought some oranges and chocolate for Albina. We shook hands and I made my way to Lipuški.

In Preili, I had been interviewed by LNT television, the first Latvian private channel. Karlis, the reporter who did the interview told me that in early morning that day, they were in a farm near Lipuški, where a familly is raising the only Latgalian horse breed.

I decided to make that farm my next stop.