Eastern Latvia: Vidzeme & Latgale

Eastern Latvia was home to the Latgalians, a Baltic people whose hillforts and princedoms, such as Jersika and Tālava, were subdued by German crusaders in the early 13th century. Vidzeme became the core of Livonia: the Livonian Order built its castles at Cēsis, Valmiera and Alūksne, and Cēsis was for a time the seat of the Order's master. When Livonia collapsed in the 16th century, the two halves of the region went separate ways.

Vidzeme passed to Sweden in 1629, and Swedish rule, remembered locally as the "good Swedish times", brought schools and Ernst Glück's Latvian Bible, translated in Alūksne and completed in 1694. After 1721 it was part of the Russian Empire, and in the 19th century its Latvian farmers, shaped by Moravian Brethren congregations and village schools, led the national awakening. Latgale, by contrast, remained under Poland-Lithuania as Inflanty until 1772, which kept it Catholic, bound it to the Polish nobility and cut it off from the rest of Latvia for generations. Russian Old Believers fleeing persecution settled there in large numbers, as did Jewish communities, who made up much of Daugavpils and Rēzekne.

In June 1919 Estonian and Latvian forces won the Battle of Cēsis against the German Landeswehr, still marked as Latvia's Victory Day. Latgale was freed from the Red Army in 1920 with Polish help. The Holocaust destroyed its Jewish towns, and Soviet industry brought many Russian-speakers to Daugavpils, which remains overwhelmingly Russian-speaking.

The two halves differ sharply. Vidzeme is Lutheran, Latvian-speaking and proud of its role in the national awakening; its towns host choirs, amateur theatres and summer music festivals, and the Gauja is Latvia's best-loved river. Latgale is the country's Catholic stronghold, with wooden and brick churches in every village, roadside crosses and the great summer pilgrimage to the basilica at Aglona on the feast of the Assumption.

Latgale has its own written language, Latgalian, recognised in law as a historic variety of Latvian and heard on local radio, in schools and on street signs in Rēzekne. The region is also Latvia's most mixed: Latvians, Russians, Poles, Belarusians and Old Believer communities live side by side, and in Daugavpils Russian is the everyday language. Pottery, made in Latgale since early medieval times, is the region's signature craft.

Both halves share the rural calendar of midsummer bonfires, berry and mushroom picking, and the sauna. Rivalry is mild but real: Latgalians are often teased as easy-going and hospitable, and they return the joke about the dour farmers of Vidzeme.

Daugavpils, with around 80,000 people, is the region's largest city and an industrial town on the Daugava, near the Lithuanian and Belarusian borders. Rēzekne (about 26,000) is Latgale's cultural capital, and Ludza, Krāslava and Preiļi are small market towns. In Vidzeme, Valmiera (about 23,000) and Cēsis are the main towns, with Madona, Gulbene, Alūksne and Smiltene serving the uplands.

Vidzeme lives from timber, farming, food processing and the university and fibreglass industry of Valmiera, and Cēsis draws commuters and weekenders from Riga. Incomes in Latgale are lower than in the rest of Latvia, and its population is falling as young people leave for Riga and abroad. Daugavpils keeps some engineering and manufacturing, and new state investment has gone into its university, roads and border security.

Daily life is rural and seasonal: gardens, livestock, fishing and firewood, with lakeside summer houses filling up in July. Current debates are about depopulation, the security of the eastern border and the shift of schools from Russian to Latvian as the language of instruction.

Vidzeme cooks in the mainstream Latvian way: dark rye bread, smoked pork and bacon, pīrāgi (baked buns filled with bacon and onion), curd cheese, grey peas and potatoes. Spring brings birch sap (bērzu sula) collected from the trees, and the bogs yield cranberries in autumn.

Latgale's table shows its Polish and Russian neighbours. Potatoes appear as pancakes and dumplings, freshwater fish such as pike, bream and tench come from the lakes, and Russian-style pelmeni and blini are everyday food in Daugavpils. Forest mushrooms are pickled, salted and fried in quantity, and Old Believer households are known for their baking and pickles.

The region's notorious drink is šmakovka, a home-distilled spirit long associated with Latgale. Kvass, herbal teas and honey from small apiaries are common.

Cēsis is the best base for Vidzeme: its medieval Order castle, climbable towers and manor house, cobbled streets and St John's Church sit above the Gauja valley. Gauja National Park stretches along the river with sandstone cliffs, caves and walking and canoe routes; near Cēsis are the reconstructed lake fortress at Āraiši and, at Līgatne, nature trails with enclosures of native animals. Valmiera, upstream, has St Simon's Church and the castle ruins on its riverbank.

Further east, the Vidzeme Upland rises to Gaiziņkalns, Latvia's highest hill at about 312 metres, and Alūksne has its lake island castle and a narrow-gauge railway to Gulbene still in service. On the coast, the Vidzeme shore between Salacgrīva and Ainaži has sandstone cliffs and fishing villages.

In Latgale, Daugavpils has its 19th-century fortress with the Mark Rothko Art Centre, the churches of four faiths on a single hill and a riverside old centre. Rēzekne has the Latgale Māra monument and the GORS concert hall. Aglona's white basilica stands between two lakes, and Rāzna National Park, the Latgale lakes and Lake Drīdzis, the country's deepest, lie around Rēzekne and Krāslava. Ludza, often called the oldest town in Latvia, keeps wooden houses and castle ruins by the Great Ludza lake.