A brick and stone gateway with an eagle crest above an arched passage, reached by a wooden bridge, beside grassy ramparts

Eastern Latvia: Vidzeme & Latgale, Latvia

Daugavpils

Nicholas Gate, one of the entrances to the 19th-century Daugavpils Fortress. (Scotch Mist / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0)

Latvia's second city, on the Daugava in the far south-east, about 230 km from Riga and close to the borders with Lithuania and Belarus. Once the capital of Polish Livonia and a tsarist garrison town with a great Jewish community, it is now an overwhelmingly Russian-speaking industrial and university city, known for its 19th-century fortress and the Rothko art centre.

Neighbourhoods

  • Historical centre
    • First-time visitors
    • Architecture
    • Best for food

    The grid of streets laid out to a plan approved in St Petersburg in 1826, between the Daugava and the railway station, with classical and eclectic buildings and many red-brick houses. Pedestrianised Rīgas iela is the main street, with Unity House and Dubrovin Park close by.

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  • The Fortress
    • History
    • Arts and culture

    The vast fortress of 1810–1878 north-west of the centre, with barracks, gates and ramparts, preserved without significant alteration. The former artillery arsenal now houses the Rothko Museum.

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  • Jaunbūve and Church Hill
    • Churches
    • Local life

    A neighbourhood of small houses whose rise, Church Hill, holds the churches of four denominations side by side — Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Old Believer — the city's most distinctive skyline.

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  • Ķīmija
    • Quiet and residential

    A residential district built in the 1960s for the workers of the Dauteks synthetic-fibre plant, once one of the largest in the Soviet Union, and named after it.

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  • Stropi
    • Lakes and outdoors
    • Families

    The north-eastern part of the city, a popular recreation area beside the Big Stropu Lake, among the forests and parks that cover much of the city's territory.

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Things to do

Fortress and famous landmarks

  • Daugavpils Fortresslandmark

    Begun in 1810 on the orders of Tsar Alexander I and completed in 1878, the only early-19th-century fortification of its kind in Northern Europe preserved without significant alteration.

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  • Rothko Museummuseum

    Opened in 2013 in the fortress's artillery arsenal, the only place in Europe that permanently displays original paintings by Mark Rothko, who was born in the city in 1903, on loan from his estate.

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  • Unity House and Daugavpils Theatrelandmark

    A building of plain geometric forms from the late 1930s by Verners Vitands, restored in 2007, holding the theatre, the central library, shops and cafés.

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  • Daugava flood damlandmark

    An embankment built in 1841 that runs for about 6 km along the river, up to 9 m high, still protecting the city from floods.

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Church Hill and places of worship

  • Ss. Boris and Gleb Cathedrallandmark

    The city's main Orthodox church on Church Hill, able to hold 5,000 people — the largest Orthodox church in Latvia.

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  • Martin Luther Cathedrallandmark

    The Lutheran cathedral that stands beside the Catholic, Orthodox and Old Believer churches on Church Hill.

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  • St Peter-in-Chains Catholic Churchlandmark

    The oldest surviving church in the city, built in 1845–1848 and rebuilt in 1924–1934.

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  • Daugavpils Synagoguelandmark

    A synagogue built in 1850 and restored in 2003–2006, the survivor of more than 40 that stood in the city before the Second World War.

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Museums and the old centre

  • Rīgas ielaneighborhood

    The main street of the centre, one of the first in Latvia to be made pedestrian-only in the early 1980s, with several buildings of historical and architectural value.

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  • Daugavpils Regional Studies and Art Museummuseum

    The city museum, in an Art Nouveau building at Rīgas iela 8 that has kept its original architecture almost unaltered.

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  • Dubrovin Parkpark

    A 3-hectare park laid out more than a century ago in the city centre and named after Pavel Dubrovin, the first head of the city.

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Sport and the outdoors

  • Stadium Lokomotīveattraction

    The speedway stadium, formerly the Latvijas Spīdveja Centrs, home of the Lokomotiv Daugavpils team, which races in the Polish league system.

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  • Big Stropu Lakepark

    The lake at the heart of the Stropi recreation area, one of 15 lakes inside the city's boundaries.

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Short trips from the city

  • Aglona Basilicalandmark

    An Italian Baroque basilica completed in 1780, one of the most important Catholic spiritual centres in Latvia and one of eight international shrines recognised by the Holy See.

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Seasonal events

  • Feast of the Assumption at Aglona15 August

    Thousands of pilgrims gather each year at the basilica north-east of the city for the feast of the Assumption.

  • Football seasonMarch–November

    BFC Daugavpils play in the Latvian Higher League, usually played from early March until November.

Eat and drink

Long-standing places and food districts in Daugavpils. Hours, ratings and directions come from your maps app, always current.

Food districts

  • Rīgas ielaneighborhood

    The pedestrian main street and the streets around it hold most of the centre's cafés, bars and restaurants.

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  • Unity Houseneighborhood

    The city's cultural centre between Rīgas and Saules streets, with cafés among the theatre, library and shops.

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Cafés and bars

  • Cafés near Saules ielaneighborhood

    The streets around the old university building on Saules iela, where there are several cafés.

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Experience Daugavpils

History

The Livonian Order built Dünaburg Castle in 1273 on the site of a Lithuanian settlement about 18 km upstream of the present city. Ivan the Terrible destroyed it in 1577, and the Polish king Stephen Báthory founded a new castle and town 20 km downriver, the core of today's city, which received Magdeburg rights in 1582. As Dyneburg it became the capital of the Inflanty Voivodeship, or Polish Livonia, apart from a decade of Russian occupation from 1656, when it was renamed Borisoglebov. After the First Partition of Poland in 1772 it passed to the Russian Empire.

Under the tsars it grew into a garrison and railway town. The fortress was built between 1810 and 1878, a new centre was laid out to an 1826 plan, and the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw railway arrived in 1860. Renamed Dvinsk in 1893, it had 69,700 people in 1897, 44 per cent of them Jews; the Jewish community ran factories and workshops and supported some 40 synagogues. The painter Mark Rothko was born here in 1903 and emigrated to the United States at ten.

Latvian, Polish and Soviet troops fought the Battle of Daugavpils in 1919–1920, and in 1920 the city was renamed Daugavpils. In 1941 German forces occupied it and, with local collaborators, murdered almost all of the city's 16,000 Jews; only about 100 survived. After the war the city became overwhelmingly Russian-speaking and developed a large chemical industry, and the Lociki air base operated nearby during the Cold War. In 2010 the vice-mayor was shot dead in the city centre, a killing that remains unsolved.

Culture & Customs

Daugavpils is an important cultural centre in eastern Latvia. Since the Second World War it has been overwhelmingly Russian-speaking, with Latvians and Poles as significant minorities, and in the 2012 referendum 85 per cent of its voters backed making Russian a second state language. In 1930 it was among the most ethnically diverse cities in Europe, with no group above 30 per cent, and German and Yiddish were once widely spoken. A Polish gymnasium still teaches on Warsaw Street.

Religion is visible everywhere. Church Hill gathers Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Old Believer churches side by side, the Orthodox cathedral of Ss. Boris and Gleb is the largest in Latvia, and the restored synagogue recalls the city's Jewish past, when it was home to two of the most famous rabbis of their time, the Rogatchover Gaon and Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk. Unity House, built in the late 1930s, holds the theatre and library, while the Rothko Museum in the fortress shows original paintings by Mark Rothko.

Sport has a strong following. Speedway is a passion, with the Lokomotiv Daugavpils team racing in the Polish league and Grand Prix rounds held at the city's stadium; BFC Daugavpils play in the top football division, and HK Dinaburga plays in the Latvian Hockey Higher League.

Daily Life

As of 1 January 2023 Daugavpils had a population of 78,850, making it Latvia's second-largest city and the ninth-largest in the Baltic states. It is a state city with its own municipality and also houses the administration of the surrounding Augšdaugava Municipality. The city is unusually green, with 15 lakes, 8 rivers and large areas of forest and park within its boundaries.

Industry remains important, with a locomotive repair plant, a drive-chain factory and metalworking and food firms among the employers. The Soviet-era chemical industry largely disappeared in the 1990s: the Dauteks synthetic-fibre plant, once one of the largest in the Soviet Union and the second-largest industrial employer in Latvia, closed entirely, though its workers' district, Ķīmija, remains. Tax incentives aim to draw new investment to eastern Latvia. The University of Daugavpils, the largest regional university in the country, and a branch of Riga Technical University turn out more than 1,000 graduates a year.

Life moves by tram and bus through a spacious, low-rise city. The lakeside at Stropi is a popular place to relax, and pedestrian Rīgas iela is the centre's main place to stroll. The Belarusian border lies about 33 km away.

Food

The city eats from the Latvian table, which includes many dishes adopted from Soviet cuisine: pelmeni (pelmeņi) with sour cream, Ukrainian borsch (borščs), dressed herring (siļķe kažokā), shashlik (šašliks), rasol (rasols) and plov (plovs), with kefir (kefīrs) and kvass to drink. Kvass is traditionally brewed from fermented rye or black bread.

The Latvian staples are here too. Dark rye bread, rupjmaize, made from coarse rye flour, malt and caraway, has been a staple for centuries; cottage cheese, biezpiens, is eaten with boiled potatoes, lightly salted herring, spring onions and sour cream; and speķrauši, buns filled with finely cut streaky bacon and onion, are a common snack. Hot- and cold-smoked meat and fish are widely eaten, and potato pancakes are popular.

Beer is the most consumed alcoholic drink in Latvia, and the city's bars pour Latvian and imported brews. Most of the cafés and restaurants are in the historical centre, along pedestrian Rīgas iela and around Unity House.

Planning tools

Budget

Daugavpils costs well below Riga, with low prices for meals, public transport and museum tickets. Hotels in the centre are modest in cost, and the fortress, Church Hill and the pedestrian centre are free to explore. A hire car adds to the bill for trips into the Latgale lake country.

Daily Budget Midrange
USD 90–160 (central hotel, restaurant meals, the Rothko Museum, a hire car for a day trip)
Daily Budget Shoestring
USD 40–70 (hostel or budget hotel, cafés and canteens, trams and buses)

Carry a little cash for small cafés and rural stops; book early for the mid-August pilgrimage season, when the area fills up.

Best Time to Visit

May to September, when the lakes and parks are in use, the football season is under way and the centre's cafés move outdoors; July is the warmest month. Mid-August brings pilgrims to nearby Aglona. Winters are the coldest in the country, and the Daugavpils weather station holds Latvia's lowest recorded temperature.

Suggested Number of Days

Two days cover the city at an easy pace. Allow three or four to use it as a base for the lakes and small towns of Latgale; without a car the extra days are harder to use, as rural buses are infrequent.

First Visit
2 days
With Surroundings
3–4 days

Transportation

The city has four tram routes and a bus network, both run by Daugavpils Satiksme, which reach every part of town cheaply. The railway station is the terminus of the Riga–Daugavpils line, with several trains a day to the capital; buses to Riga run regularly, and the drive takes three to three and a half hours. Passenger trains to Belarus and Russia no longer run.

Use the trams within the city; hire a car for a Latgale lakes loop, and keep away from the border strip.

Airport & Station Connections

Riga Airport, about 230 km away, is the nearest airport with scheduled flights; a coach links it with Daugavpils in about three and a half hours, stopping in Jēkabpils. Most visitors arrive by train or bus from Riga. The old Soviet air base at Lociki, 12 km north-east of the city, has no passenger flights.

Walkability

The historical centre is compact and flat, with a pedestrianised main street, and the walk out to the fortress or Church Hill is manageable, though the tram is quicker. The city is spacious and green, with forests, parks and lakes making up much of its territory, so Stropi and the outer districts are better reached by tram or bus.

Safety

Latvia is a safe country with low levels of violent crime. Daugavpils lies close to the borders with Lithuania and Belarus, and the Belarusian frontier is closely guarded, with restricted zones. In town the usual urban care applies, and in winter ice and very low temperatures are the main hazards.

Keep away from the border strip and obey signs in restricted zones, agree taxi fares or use the meter, and dress for severe cold in winter. Check current official travel advice before travelling.

Climate

Daugavpils has the most continental climate in Latvia: January is the coldest month and July the warmest, and the frost-free season averages about 143 days. The city's weather station recorded +35.1°C in July 1959 and -43.2°C in February 1956, the lowest temperature ever recorded in Latvia.

Summer
warm across eastern Latvia, around 18–24°C, with July the warmest month
Winter
cold and snowy across eastern Latvia, often -5 to -10°C, with colder spells; January is the coldest month

Local Customs

Russian is the everyday language of most of the city, alongside Latvian and Polish. Tipping is reserved: rounding up by around 5–10 per cent is enough but not required. Church Hill's churches are active places of worship for four faiths, so modest dress and quiet are expected inside, especially in the Orthodox and Old Believer churches.

Drinking alcohol in public outside bars and restaurants is considered bad manners and can bring a fine; ask before photographing services in churches.

Common Payment Methods

Latvia uses the euro. Cards and contactless payment are widely accepted in shops, hotels and restaurants, and ATMs are common. A little cash is useful for small cafés, markets and rural stops.