Latvian Quotes

Of course it’s taken many years to be able to express what’s been inside me. But nowadays I say to people I was born and brought up in a Latvian house in the country of Australia. So I consider that this house has always been a small part of Latvia, there’s always been Latvian traditions, Latvian foods, Latvian language and I’ve always considered that even though I lived in a large city, I lived in a Latvian ghetto. I mentioned the word ‘ghetto’ … which a lot of people consider negatively, but I consider it in a positive sense. I consider myself quite a competent schizophrenic—I am able to be very Latvian and very dinky-di strong. I don’t have any trouble switching hats. - Viktor Brenners, 2nd Generation DP

If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots.

Pārāk karsts bija pazemojums, ka katrs ienācējs var pavandīties pa tavu dvēseli kā pa rakstāmgalda atvilktni.

One thing that I find very weird here in Australia is Latvians in Australia celebrate Latvian traditions by a calendar, not by the seasons as they do in Latvia. It’s a bit strange for me, everyone said a few weeks ago, ‘Merry Christmas,’ in Latvian, or maybe Winterfest, and here I was sweating like a pig saying, ‘Merry Winterfest!’ – Viktor Brenners, 2nd Generation DP

Summer is a Latvian chicken. We make foolish choices. We think we’re young again. We run with outstretched arms toward an object of love and it pecks us and pecks us until we’re standing there snot-nosed and teary in the middle of Astor Place and the sun sets fire to our Penguin shirts and all that is left to do is go to our air-conditioned homes and ponder the cruelty of our finest season.

Rokas vēziens, plaukstas mājiens, acumirklis, un tu jau esi pavisam cits. Cilvēks nevar neko par sevi zināt, izrādās. Nevar neko paredzēt, kaut šķietas sevi pazīstam...

Tev bija taisnība, zvaigznes ir tuvu.

The superflu we can charge off to the stupidity of the human race. It doesn't matter if we did it or the Russians, or the Latvians.

He was a big, bony man. Iron muscles shaped his jacket sleeves and quickly wore through new trousers. He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there.

Uz tavas neatvadīšanās mana klātbūtne turas.

Krāsas ir krāšņas, tās aizrauj, bet izkliedē un pēc sevis atstāj tukšumu.

Tāpēc jau latvieši neko nevar izdarīt, ka viens otru tikai kritizē.

And another thing: back in the twenties all the jailers were Latvians, from the Latvian Red Army units and others, and the food was all handed out by strapping Latvian women.

Latvieši, kā visiem zināms, ir dzejnieku tauta. Tikai pavisam retais latvietis nebūs vismaz jaunībā kaut drusku pavingrinājies dzejot… Zīmīgi un apbrīnojami, ka latviešu apsēstība ar dzeju izveidojusies par spīti tam, ka dzejo latviski ir nesalīdzināmi grūtāk nekā citās valodās. Patiesībā, tieši bezdievīgi grūti. Kā lai poēts uzlido poēzijas eteriskajos augstumos, ja kā dzirnavu akmens karājas kaklā stingais, negrozāmais uzsvars uz katra vārda pirmā balsiena? Un piedevām, nabaga latviešu dzejnieku līdz izmisumam vārdzina pagalam trūcīga atskaņu izvēle.

The Nazis chased the dream of a racially pure society through occupation and conquest, thus ensuring intimate contact with people of many non-Germanic nationalities and races. The Communists insisted that national identity was irrelevant but obsessively persecuted men and women because of who they were: Latvians, Poles, Ukrainians, Armenians, Finns, Chechens, Koreans, and Turks.

Political calculation and local suffering do not entirely explain the participation in these pogroms. Violence against Jews served to bring the Germans and elements of the local non-Jewish populations closer together. Anger was directed, as the Germans wished, toward the Jews, rather than against collaborators with the Soviet regime as such. People who reacted to the Germans' urging knew that they were pleasing their new masters, whether or not they believed that the Jews were responsible for their own woes. By their actions they were confirming the Nazi worldview. The act of killing Jews as revenge for NKVD executions confirmed the Nazi understanding of the Soviet Union as a Jewish state. Violence against Jews also allowed local Estonians, Latvian, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, and Poles who had themselves cooperated with the Soviet regime to escape any such taint. The idea that only Jews served communists was convenient not just for the occupiers but for some of the occupied as well. Yet this psychic nazification would have been much more difficult without the palpable evidence of Soviet atrocities. The pogroms took place where the Soviets had recently arrived and where Soviet power was recently installed, where for the previous months Soviet organs of coercion had organized arrests, executions, and deportations. They were a joint production, a Nazi edition of a Soviet text. P. 196

Bet latviešu žurnālisti patiešām bija apbrīnojami okšķeri! Uzost lietu, par ko slepenībā sarakstījās tikai divi cilvēki! Ar tādu sasniegumu varētu lepoties pat FIB vai Skotlendjards! Būtu latvieši pie darīšanas, neviens krievu spiegs neturētos ne Londonas, ne Vašingtonas ministrijās!

Ar sieviešiem var izmīlēties, bet ar suņiem var izrunāties no sirs.

Pasaulē ir divi ģeniāli izgudrojumi. Dievs izgudroja sievieti, lai vīrietim nebūtu garlaicīgi, un vīrietis izgudroja skaitļojamo mašīnu, lai zinātu, cik viņš dievam parādā.

There’s no skill and no grace to it, but you

Ikviens bēg, citādi nevar, manu Karali. Arī es bēgu, tikai laikam uz citu pusi.

Bet tu aizmirsti, ka katrs, kas tevi atcerēsies, pats drīz nomirs, aiz tā seko tie citi, kas pēc tā, un tikmēr, tikmēr, kamēr neizdzisīs viss, izejot cauri atcerošos un nolemto paaudzei.

Viņudien skatos - govs norāvusies un iebridusi bietēs. Es saku: "Vaidav, izlīdziet!" Un ko jūs domājat! Aizskrēja. Vienreiz iekoda kājā un tūdaļ atpakaļ. Ausis nolaidis, aste kājstarpē. Viņš jutās neērti. Es arī. Govs tāpat. Visiem trim kauns.

Most people think the Lego corporation assembled a crack team of world-class experts to engineer Mini-Florida on a computer, but I’m not buying it.” “You aren’t?” asked Coleman. “It’s way too good.” Serge pointed at a two-story building in Key West. “Examine the meticulous green shutters on Hemingway’s house. No, my money is on a lone-wolf manic type like the famous Latvian Edward Leedskalnin, who single-handedly built the Coral Castle back in the twenties. He operated in secret, moving multi-ton hewn boulders south of Miami, and nobody knows how he did it. Probably happened here as well: The Lego people conducting an exhaustive nationwide search among the obsessive-compulsive community. But they had to be selective and stay away from the ones whose entire houses are filled to the ceiling with garbage bags of their own hair. Then they most likely found some cult guru living in a remote Lego ashram south of Pueblo with nineteen wives, offered him unlimited plastic blocks and said, ‘Knock yourself out.

Jo mūzikas radīšanas pamatā jābūt cilvēku saskarsmes vai atgrūšanās spēkam vai sāpēm. Vai arī visiem kopā. Jo savā dziļākajā būtībā mūzika ir sekss. Trubadūri zem logiem dziedāja, lai pievilinātu daiļavas ar savās vīrišķīgajās iekarotāju balsīs dziedātajām sirdi plosošajām serenādēm. Sievietēm ir radītas seksīgas balsis ne jau tādēļ, lai tajās lasītu pārtikas receptes vai deklamētu pantiņus par dzimtenes nodevību. Lai gan - kāda starpība, ko sieviete deklamē vai dzied, ja viņa spēj ar vienu skaņu, parādīšanās mirkli vai gaistošām smaržām modināt vīriešos iekāri! Mūzikas skurbulī cilvēki metas dejā un sadalās pa pāriem, lai pret rītu iegūtu viens otru. Vismaz viens no abiem to vēlas vienmēr un melo, ja saka pretējo. Pasaulē valda viens vienīgs sekss, apreibināšanās un rokenrols.

It goes without saying," Miranda had said, in their initial phone call, "but of course no police force is going to investigate this." The closest country to her disappearance was Mauritania, but she'd disappeared in international waters, so it wasn't actually Mauritania's problem. Vincent was Canadian, the captain of the ship was Australian, Geoffrey Bell was British, the rest of the crew German, Latvian, and Filipino. The ship was flagged to Panama, which meant that legally it was a floating piece of Panamanian territory, but of course Panama had neither the incentive nor the manpower to investigate a disappearance off the west coast of Africa. It is possible to disappear in the space between countries.

But that's crazy, " George said. "How can I be the Average American Man? I'm only five foot eight and my name is Blaxter spelled with an "l", and I'm of Armenian and Latvian ancestry and I was born in Ship's Bottom, New Jersey. What's that average of, for Chrissakes? They better recheck their results. What they're looking for is some Iowa farmboy with blond hair and a Mercury and 2.4 children." "That's the old, outdated stereotype," the reporter said. "America today is composed of racial and ethnic minorities whose sheer ubiquity precludes the possibility of choosing an Anglo-Saxon model. The average man of today has to be unique to be average, if you see what I mean." The Shaggy Average American Man Story

Pašlaik nav pieprasījuma pēc smagās mūzikas. Ārzemēs - tur cilvēki treniņtērpos staigā, pārrijušies hamburgerus, pārskatījušies televīziju, visi resni un bezrūpīgi. Viņus interesē pārdzīvojums mūzikā, jo viņiem ir pārlieku laba dzīve. Pie mums cilvēkiem savu problēmu un sāpju pietiek, tāpēc viņi labāk klausās Dzeni, kurš dzied par jasmīniem. Vai deju mūziku. /Jānis Bukums/

Stalin’s appeasement of Hitler had continued with a large increase in deliveries to Germany of grain, fuel, cotton, metals and rubber purchased in south-east Asia, circumventing the British blockade. During the period of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union had provided 26,000 tons of chromium, used in metal alloys, 140,000 tons of manganese and more than two millions tons of oil to the Reich. Despite having received well over eighty clear indications of a German invasion–indeed probably more than a hundred–Stalin seemed more concerned with ‘the security problem along our north-west frontier’, which meant the Baltic states. On the night of 14 June, a week before the German invasion, 60,000 Estonians, 34,000 Latvians and 38,000 Lithuanians were forced on to cattle trucks for deportation to camps in the distant interior of the Soviet Union. Stalin remained unconvinced even when, during the last week before the invasion, German ships rapidly left Soviet ports and embassy staff were evacuated.

We're all in this town because of two events. The superflu we on charge off to the stupidity of the human race. It doesn't matter if we did it or the Russians, or the Latvians. Who emptied the beaker loses importance beside the general truth: At the end of all rationality the mats grave. The Laws of physic, the Laws of biology, the axioms of mathematics, they're all part of deathtrip, because we are what we are. If it hadn't been Captain Trip, it would have been something else. The fashion was to blame it on 'technology; but 'technology' is the trunk of the tree, not the roots. The roots are rationalism, and I would define that word so: 'Rationalism is the idea we can ever understand anything about the state of being.' It's a deathtrip. It always has been. So you can charge the superflu of to rationalism if you want. But the other reason we're here is the dreams, and the dreams are irrational... We're here under the fiat of powers we don't understand. For me, that means we may be beginning to accept—only subconsciously now, and with plenty of slips backward due to culture lag —a different definition of existence. The idea that we on never understand anything about the state of being. And if rationalism is a deathtrip, then irrationalism might very well be a lifetrip... at least unless it proves otherwise.

Today, Latvian women have become the tallest women in the world, jumping from about five foot one to five foot seven. Dutch men rose from five foot seven in 1860 to just over six feet tall, making them the tallest men on Earth.

Lithuanian citizens are the rudest and most animalistic I have ever seen in Europe. They have no moral, no values, and no manners. They are always starring at others, judging with their eyes of ignorance and their very small conscience, they are very rude, they are impolite wherever you go, and their customer service is horrible. They never say sorry for anything and even offend you when you complain about their mistakes and lack of proper attitude. Besides, eating in Lithuania is a huge disaster. Food is often rotten, and commonly comes with either hair, stones of even glass, as I have found many times. These people should be ashamed to be part of Europe and be removed from the European Union. They waste money as I have never seen anywhere else and are very abusive in prices. Their prices are high but their quality level is not even suitable for animals. They represent a waste on foreign investments. Their youngest generation is also a disaster: Extremely ignorant, without any respect or education, they deserve to be unemployed and starve to death. Nobody in his right mind should ever employ a Lithuanian, marry a Lithuanian or be friend with a Lithuanian. Lithuanias are always trying to use their friendships to take advantage of others, especially if such people are outsiders. Lithuanian women are gold diggers and extremely promiscuous, especially towards men of other cultures, as if their pride was built on the number of sex partners they can have from the widest variety of nations from around the globe, especially if such men are wealthy. Nevertheless, Lithuanians are also extremely racist and ignorant about the planet they live in. They are selfish, sadistic and parasitic. Probably the same could be said about all baltic countries, namely, Latvia, but for now, it is suffice to say this statement is an undoubted fact for the country in analysis. If Latvian and Lithuanian sovereignty ever end within this generation due to major unemployment, massacres and civil wars, and the vast majority of its people perish, I would say Divine justice has been made on both nations.

Cynics declared the initials of the UTAG, the Latvian equivalent of the Resettlement Trust, to stand for Untergang Tausender Arischer Geschlechter, or “Ruination of Thousands of Aryan Descent.

Zemeslode ir milzīgs kamols, kas lido Bezgalībā. Kopā sasaistītu likteņu kamols. Viena kopīga likteņa josta, kurā katrs no mums ieausts kā smalks raksts.

Rakstnieks vienmēr raksta par sevi. Vienalga, kas arī nebūtu varonis.

Mēs esam kā rasējamie papīri. Tikai vienreiz, tikai vienreiz mīlestības zīmējumā svītru var ievilkt viegli un tīri. Katrs dzēsums jau atstāj pēdas, uz kasītas vietas uzvilkt jaunu līniju ir grūti, agrākie iespiedumi ēdas cauri.

Nakts arī ir diena, tikai tumšāka.

Laiks visu briesmīgi ātri nodzēš, dzīve ir kā tāda skolas tāfele. Vēl nekas nav pierakstīts, vēl nekas nav iegaumēts, bet viss jau nodzēsts.

Galu galā pasaulē valda taisnība: šodien tu, bet rītdien – atkal tu.

Tauki cilvēkam tas pats, kas rūsa dzelzij, reiz palaista vaļā, šī kaite vairs nav valdāma

The Latvians wanted to storm the ghetto. They wanted to kill the Jews. So the Germans had to protect us—the German army or SS or whatever it was. It is paradoxical.

We are hardly the first victims of perfidious Soviet policy, which has, already several times in history, placed the interests of power of the Greater Russian Empire— which is probably the most suitable name for the true essence of the complicated little internal Soviet unions— above all the interests of proletarian internationalism. What was the annexation of the Baltic peoples, the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians? To this day, he hatred these nations feel for the Russians is so great that a European [sic] cannot even comprehend it. Mladý svět (Young World), special edition no. 4, 26 August 1968

The Romantic movement encouraged respect for primitive and popular culture; it also gave rise to cultural nationalism. J.G. Herder, one of the more ardent followers of the late eighteenth-century enthusiasm for collecting folk songs, popularized the view that nations express themselves in ballads, folk-tales, customs, and traditions, and that every particular language embodied a unique spirit, without which the world would be impoverished. On a visit to Riga, he had formed the view that Latvian folklore might be drowned in the prevailing sea of German. Herder’s enthusiasm for conservation caught on to become an influential source of modern nationalism.[25] But there were others, including the work of enlightened educational reformers. Czechs benefiting from new educational opportunities learned German, for example, and were thus able to devour the classics of German Romanticism. The University of Buda Press, founded in 1777, not only printed the first good Hungarian grammars but soon began to publish in Serbian, Slovak and Romanian. A grammar was vital to the definition of a single, literary language on which a sense of linguistic nationhood could be based (a collection of contrasting dialects could form no such basis). Furthermore, publication in a variety of emerging literary languages was to help spread a consciousness of a linguistic identity.

This was a leavetaking from near and dear ones, with whom I had spent sitxeen years, suffered away together. We had sorrowed together, been joyful together, worked together, and celebrated together. We had argued, had altercations, gossiped, lied about one another, but on important occasions — through joy, sorrow, tragedy — always been one solid, self-sacrificing family. I had helped the others the least, but been helped the most. I owed an enormous debt to every one of these guests, but it was impossible to put my gratitude into words. The language of tears was also already too trite and shallow. The Latvians did not expect anything in return for their love. They saw me off to the homeland as their sister.

But in a stroke of genius, he ordered the Latvian stew. While this traditional dish of pork, onions, and apricots was reasonably priced, it was also reasonably exotic; and it somehow harkened back to that world of grandmothers and holidays and sentimental melodies that they had been about to discuss when so rudely interrupted. “I’ll have the same,” said our serious young lady. The same!

If I may,” the Count interjected. “For a serving of Latvian stew, you will find no better choice than a bottle of the Mukuzani.” Leaning toward their table and mimicking the perfectly parted fingers of Andrey, the Count gestured to the entry on the list. That this wine was a fraction of the cost of the Rioja need not be a matter of a discussion between gentlemen. Instead, the Count simply noted: “The Georgians practically grow their grapes in the hopes that one day they will accompany such a stew.

If one had cigarettes, one could barter for food with the German farmers. If the Latvian did not speak German, then the exchange was primitive and went something like this: "Ich Zigarette, du Schwein." ("Me - cigarette, you - pig") The farmer understood, and the DP returned to camp with a hunk of smoked bacon.

The symbolism of the two animals seems relatively clear if we refer to archaeological findings. A group of three clay statues was found in a field of Gallo-Roman urns that depicted a Matrona with a child, a rooster, and a dog.20 On a symbolic level, the dog represents death and the cock stands for resurrection. We can recall the Swedish saying “the dead are put to flight by a red rooster.”*25 The Latvians slew a black cat, black dog, and black rooster when they believed they were threatened by Meris, the Plague Virgin. The blood of these three was used to coat a rope twisted backward, which was then used to gird the house.21 As a symbol of resurrection, a chicken (or goose) egg was placed in Celtic tombs and, more specifically, in ossuary vessels that contained the remnants of cremated bodies.

Latvian émigrés.” “How

The government employed these men and women for their expertise in propaganda and psychological warfare, for work in American laboratories, and even as special guerrilla troops for deployment inside the USSR in the midst of a nuclear war. CIA recruiting in Europe in particular often focused on Russians, Ukrainians, Latvians, and other Eastern European nationalists who had collaborated with the Nazis during Germany’s wartime occupation of their homelands. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of such recruits were SS veterans; some had been officers of the bloody Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the Nazi party’s security service.

He rushed over and banged on the door to alert the residents. Inside, a Latvian immigrant named Elmars Sprogis, a seventy-year-old retired construction worker who had also been accused of collaborating with the Nazis, heard the banging and went to see what was happening. When he opened the door, a huge explosion rocked the neighborhood. This time, it was the Good Samaritan outside the door who took the force of the blow, losing his right leg in the blast. Sprogis himself was not hurt.

pie visa vēl iztēloties neko savu aizmiršanos un meitenes auksto roku viņas krūtis kā vīlušās observatorijas un savu piedzimšanu kā neizdevušos joku

dzeja ir valoda kurā visu var sarunāt

The Swedish economy—dependent, then, on mining and timber—was quite big in the mid-17th century. It needed money to finance its trade. But there was a problem: its currency, the daler, was made of heavy copper plates measuring one foot by two feet! The king needed a bank to store his ‘coins’. No good ideas were forthcoming from his subjects until a Latvian man called Johan Palmstruch convinced him that he would do it. He would set up the bank and, in return, give the king half the profits. When the king died, problems arose which were eventually resolved by the oldest sovereign trick in the book: the nationalisation of Palmstruch’s bank. Thus the concept of a central bank was born.

Being that most everyone knew Latvian and Russian, it was the only indication.

When the irreverent satirists began to mock the new Bolshevik regime, however, Latvian Riflemen in the audience shot up the premises and began to chase Bim and Bom. The audience laughed, assuming it was part of the act. The clowns would be arrested.

571Par koncertu apmeklētājiem man sazin kāpēc bija ilūzija, ka tad, ja cilvēks interesējas par labu mūziku, viņam galvā var būt tikai pozitīvas domas, kas vieno. Tāpat jebkurš mūziķis vai mākslinieks man joprojām šķita ļoti izglītots un intelektuāls.

Ar tām idejām ir tā... Zini, kad viss sāk pastiprināti darboties? Kad esi ar alkoholu vai citām vielām noārdījis auru un tev lido iekšā visvisādi sūdi un arī labie. /Dambis/

Arrivava solido come il granito, e da quel momento pareva che tutto dovesse spezzarsi contro di lui, sia che avanzasse, sia che restasse piantato sulle gambe leggermente divaricate.

Sono cose di cui non ci si vanta, cose che a parlarne farebbero sorridere e che pure richiedono una certa dose di eroismo.

The train continued on its way to Rīga. I could not peel my eyes from the window. On some hillock, an old friend from long-gone days rushed towards me: the grey rock. A sight for sore eyes after stone-less Siberia. Beside the large one, two smaller ones. One more. Another one. Now, this is the homeland! Homeland, in which my near and dear long-unseen rocks are greeting me. In Siberia, we felt the lack of rocks keenly, that is why they touched me so deeply now. The Latvian has grown up so symbiotically with the rock, just as he has with his land and his sky. I remembered a scene Pumpurs had described, about some refugee who had embraced the rock in the forest meadow of his home with both arms, pressed his forehead against its cold forehead, stopped suffering, and started being joyful. The land is the same. What had changed were the circumstances and people who also called it their own. A

The traditional pīrāgi, small rolls baked with a stuffing of bacon, filled the house with a heavenly aroma; there were the jellied meats or galerts, the pork roast and the vegetable-beet-herring salad called rasols.

The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.

The Latvian painter has a special love for diffused outdoor light which seems to penetrate the bodies and emanate from them," a light that reappears within, and from behind, Rothko's paintings, an illumination glimpsed through a hazy doorway or window, a light longed for but beyond reach.

How do you send the request? A text message?” I hid a smile at her sarcasm. “Yep.” “You’re kidding me!” She threw her hands up. “We’re talking ancient Latvian goddesses here, and you guys communicate via text? Couldn’t you find something cooler?

Tu dzirdēji mani, Tu saprati mani. Tu ienāci manas dvēseles dubļos basām kājām kā pļavā- Un dubļi iesāka ziedēt

mēs rudenī svinējām svētkus kur asaras mijās ar dejām kur skūpsti kā atslēgas vēra durvis beidzamām bezizejām

Detective Chief Inspector Maigret of the Flying Squad raised his eyes. It seemed to him that the cast-iron stove in the middle of his office with its chimney tube rising to the ceiling wasn’t roaring properly. He pushed the telegram away, rose ponderously to his feet, adjusted the flue and thrust three shovels of coal into the firebox.

On the second floor he read the numbers on the bronze plaques. The door of no. 17 was open. Valets with striped waistcoats were bringing in the luggage. The traveller had taken off his cloak and looked very slender and elegant in his pinstripe suit. He was smoking a papirosa and giving instructions at the same time.

Inside every wrong-doer and crook there lives a human being. In addition, of course, there is an opponent in a game, and it’s the player that the police are inclined to see. As a rule, that’s what they go after.

Maigret worked like any other policeman. Like everyone else, he used the amazing tools that men like Bertillon, Reiss and Locard have given the police – anthropometry, the principle of the trace, and so forth – and that have turned detection into forensic science. But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

Tev nav nekādas pašdisciplīnas kāds teica ir gan es tikai nezinu kur noliku pag pag te kaut kur jābūt nevaru atrast zinu te kaut kur bija vismaz man liekas tā bija pašdisciplīna un mana

Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel’s atmosphere could not assimilate.

He was still staring at her. Because he was pushing her to the limit, or perhaps because she didn’t know what else to do, Mrs Mortimer-Levingston threw a fit.

He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues. It was something more than self-confidence but less than pride. He would turn up and stand like a rock with his feet wide apart. On that rock all would shatter, whether Maigret moved forward or stayed exactly where he was. His pipe was nailed to his jawbone. He wasn’t going to remove it just because he was in the lobby of the Majestic. Could it be that Maigret simply preferred to be common and self-assertive?

Some crime or offence is committed. The match starts on the basis of more or less objective facts. It’s a problem with one or more unknowns that a rational mind tries to solve.

But what he sought, what he waited and watched out for, was the crack in the wall. In other words, the instant when the human being comes out from behind the opponent.

Whoever investigates the past, honours the future - Kās senatni pētī, nākotni svētī

My grandfather Alexander and my grandmother Shlomit, with my father and his elder brother David, on the other hand, did not go to Palestine even though they were also ardent Zionists: the conditions of life there seemed too Asiatic to them, so they went to Vilna, the capital of Lithuania, and arrived there only in 1933, by which time, as it turned out, anti-Semitism in Vilna had grown to the point of violence against Jewish students. My Uncle David especially was a confirmed European, at a time when, it seems, no one else in Europe was, apart from the members of my family and other Jews like them. Everyone else turns out to have been Pan-Slavic, PanGermanic, or simply Latvian, Bulgarian, Irish, or Slovak patriots. The only Europeans in the whole of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s were the Jews. My father always used to say: In Czechoslovakia there are three nations, the Czechs, the Slovaks, and the Czecho-Slovaks, i.e., the Jews; in Yugoslavia there are Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, and Montenegrines, but, even there, there lives a group of unmistakable Yugoslavs; and even in Stalin’s empire there are Russians, there are Ukrainians, and there are Uzbeks and Chukchis and Tatars, and among them are our brethren, the only real members of a Soviet nation.

Endiro Giansante, owner of Fawn Street Florists, descended from the store's attic where he was drying pink larkspur to find his new deliveryman, Ludis Lanka, standing near the register holding two ten-dollar bills upright in his hand. "A man came in, you were upstairs, so I took the order," he beamed proudly. "Ludis, you're a nice fellow but you're never to deal with a customer. Unless they're Latvian," he added with a smile, "in which case I'd ask you to translate." By way of confession, Ludis added, "He gave me a two-dollar tip, and reached to his pocket as if he might have to split it with Endiro. "No, keep the two dollars, but you're a delivery boy, not a salesman. Delivery man," he corrected himself, for Ludis was surely in his twenties or early thirties. He'd only been working there a few days, answering a sign in the window. God knows how the sweet fellow would survive on what he paid him, thought Endiro. He must surely live with relatives. "Es biju citur," said Ludis, which means "I was elsewhere." Not quite apropos but it was the first Latvian phrase Cliff had learned at McMasters and he'd been told he'd pronounced it well.

Immersing myself in the lyrics of Latvian folksongs, I sensed something else may be at work: A melancholy related to homesickness. A longing for an idealized home that is perpetually out of reach.

Ro once shagged a Latvian bloke who was

If I may,” the Count interjected. “For a serving of Latvian stew, you will find no better choice than a bottle of the Mukuzani.

Gradually I got used to my new life, to my mother's good and bad moments, and stays with my grandparents that were marked by sad farewells. I was Gradually I got used to my new life, to my mother's good and bad moments, and stays with my grandparents that were marked by sad farewells. I was still young, but I sensed that on the inside I was growing up. I was responsible for my mother. No one knew her light and dark sides better than I did. No one else stood ready to catch the next moment when she would want to leave her life behind.

Gradually I got used to my new life, to my mother's good and bad moments, and stays with my grandparents that were marked by sad farewells. I was still young, but I sensed that on the inside I was growing up. I was responsible for my mother. No one knew her light and dark sides better than I did. No one else stood ready to catch the next moment when she would want to leave her life behind.

poster of the Yalta Conference—Yalta!—in his bedroom, the words “NEVER FORGET” emblazoned beneath Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin in Polish, Latvian, Czech, Albanian, and all those other ex-commie tongues.

Implementing the policy of national-territorial autonomy was one of the chief tasks of Narkomnats. To that end the commissariat was structured along national lines. Polish, Byelorussian, Latvian, Jewish, Armenian, and Moslem national commissariats were created within it, and national sections were set up to concern themselves with such smaller national groups on Russian territory as the Estonians, the Germans, the Kirghiz, the Kalmyks, and the mountain tribes of the Caucasus.

Cik sadomāts un relatīvs gan ir morāles jēdziens! It sevišķi ja padomā, cik daudz pasauļu ir Visumā un cik tās atšķirīgas...

Vienmēr kā pacelta Zvēra ķetna blakus ir drauds, ka nāve iesprauksies starp diviem un atņems to otro.

Katrreiz, kad ir pārāk daudz skaistuma, tam klāt ir arī bailes no nāves, kas to visu var atņemt.

Aiva Rozenberga was 13 years old when 2 million people stood hand in hand in 1989 across the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, forming a gigantic, peaceful human chain of defiance of Soviet occupation later called the Baltic Chain. Their voices raised in song, music carried the message: “We want freedom!” This past January, to kick off the tenure of Riga, Latvia, as a European Capital of Culture, 15,000 Latvians stood shoulder to shoulder again, this time passing books from one hand to the other to bring them from the current library to a new library across the Daugava River. Ms. Rozenberga was part of the chain, as program director for Riga 2014, the foundation that put together this year’s program of events. The chain of book lovers epitomizes the power of culture in a small, vulnerable country.

Predictably, Lenin’s socialist opponents—Bundists, Latvian Social Democrats, Mensheviks—denounced the Prague conference for the illegitimate maneuver that it was. Equally predictably, however, their own efforts to answer with their own Party Congress in August 1912 disintegrated into irreconcilable factionalism.

Vizma usually loved walking through the streets of Riga. She would pick up her laundry or go on an errand and when she gave her name, there were no puzzled looks, no half smiles. She had a wonderful Latvian name and no one in Riga thought it was funny or weird.