Kuldīga

The first Kuldīga was a Curonian settlement: a fortified hill and village stood about 3.5 km downstream on the left bank of the Venta. The town's story as a German foundation begins on 19 April 1242, when the Livonian Order received permission to build a castle by the ford; that document is taken as the founding date. By 1263 the place was named as the town of Goldingen under Riga's town law, it joined the Hanseatic League in 1368, and from 1439 it held a weekly market.

After the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia was created in 1561, Duke Gotthard Kettler made the old castle one of his residences, and for a time Kuldīga served as a capital of the duchy. Floods destroyed the bridge in 1615 and a fire burned most of the wooden town the same year and the rebuilt centre moved to a new market square, the present Town Hall Square. Swedish troops took the castle in 1701, during the Great Northern War, and by 1709 it was uninhabitable.

Industry came in the later 19th century: the Vulkāns match factory, founded in 1878 and closed in 2004, and the brick bridge opened in 1874. The population doubled to about 13,000 before the First World War. Soviet occupation in 1940 was followed by German occupation in 1941, when some 500 to 600 of the town's Jews were murdered in nearby woods. Kuldīga came through the wars largely intact, and in 2023 its old town was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.

Kuldīga has long been admired by poets and painters, and its identity rests on its townscape: the timber houses of the 17th and 18th centuries, the Alekšupīte flowing past their walls, and the broad white ribbon of the Venta Rapid. The town square has been the place where townspeople gather since the settlement began, and it still hosts weavers' exhibitions, traditional celebrations and other events. Textile workshops and national festivals are part of everyday life.

The calendar mixes old customs with newer, more playful ones. On Midsummer night runners cross the brick bridge naked; during the summer town festival, held since 1992, a procession of local firms and institutions winds through the streets and competitors race along the bed of the Alekšupīte. The cycling festival in late May and an annual half marathon run over cobbled, winding streets bring in sporting crowds, and in 2008 the town opened Latvia's first indoor athletics arena.

Close by, Alsunga is the centre of the Suiti, a small Catholic community in a mainly Lutheran region, whose cultural space was placed on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage in need of urgent safeguarding in 2009. In town, Lutheran St Catherine's remains the oldest church, and the former synagogue, now the town library, is a reminder of the large Jewish community — more than 2,500 people in 1897 — that the Holocaust destroyed.

Kuldīga is the centre of Kuldīga Municipality and, by population, the sixteenth-largest settlement in Latvia. The older and larger part of the town lies on the left bank of the Venta, with the district of Pārventa across the river.

In the Soviet period the town was a district centre with a woodworking plant, a reinforced-concrete works and a knitwear factory. Today wood remains central: a plywood mill and several woodworking companies operate here, alongside a Swedish–Latvian clothing manufacturer founded in 1992 that employs around 200 people, mostly women. The town was named a European Destination of Excellence in 2007, and its old town joined the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023.

Life follows a small-town rhythm centred on Liepājas iela, the pedestrian main street with its shops, banks and places to eat, which is dressed up for the town festival, the national holidays and both solstices. Horse-drawn carriages have carried visitors through the old town for most of the year since 2008. In summer people swim at the rapid and sit under the falling water; the local newspaper, Kurzemnieks, serves the town and central Kurzeme.

Kuldīga eats in the western Latvian way, on dark rye bread, pork, fish and dairy. Cottage cheese, biezpiens, is traditionally eaten with boiled potatoes, lightly salted herring, spring onions and sour cream, and hot- and cold-smoked meat and fish are common. Speķrauši, buns filled with finely cut streaky bacon and onion, are a favourite bakery snack, and fried rye bread with garlic, ķiploku grauzdiņi, is a standard starter in bars.

The best-known local speciality comes from the Suiti village of Alsunga nearby: sklandrausis, a sweet pie of Livonian origin made of rye dough and filled with potato and carrot paste and caraway, which holds the European Union's Traditional Speciality Guaranteed status. In summer it is sold by vendors in the village streets.

Brewing has deep roots here. Beer was made in the order castle, on the duke's manors and in the town itself, and in the 19th century Kuldīga also produced vodka, liqueurs and mineral water. Beer, alus, is still the drink most Latvians choose, and the town has a modern brewery that also experiments with barrel-aged beers. Kvass, a fermented drink brewed from rye or black bread, is a popular non-alcoholic alternative.