LATVIAN CULTURE

There are two things that the Latvian people seem to love: Flowers and Music.  The flower shops are everywhere and people will greet you with flowers.  One particular city square block is filled with flower vendors.  It is a beautiful sight to behold -- These people so in love with the beauty of flowers.  And then there's music.  As you can see from the pictures music is a daily part of life.  From the old -- don't laugh, he's just trying to make a living in a horrible economy and he was really very good -- to the young (I saw one little boy playing the flute) -- From the amatauer to the professional (we went to the Latvian Symphony tonight and they were magnificent) -- music filled the air.

The other sight I experienced today is inherently related to the first two.  I visited the "Latvian Museum of Occupation," a visual and oral Chronicle of the horror the Latvian people experienced through some sixty years of oppressive foreign occupation -- first by the Soviets then by the Germans then by the Soviets again.  Under the Soviets they were brutalized and thousands deported to the famous Russian Gulag.  When the Germans marched into Riga in 1940 the Latvians actually cheered because they felt liberated from Russian rule.  Little did they know that their nightmare was just beginning. 

Going through the museum and reading about the thousands who perished and the millions who suffered unspeakable hardship, the thing that srikes me is the amazing human spirit and the will to live.  One display at the museum showed the things that people made as they lived in caves, and cellars, and in the trees of the forrests, hiding from their oppresors.  The plauqe read, The heart and hands can create something from almost nothing: From wood -- a needle and a piano without a voice; From hospital gauze -- fine embroidery; From birch bark -- stationary; From the will to survive and perhaps even to once again go on living -- self-portraits, the portraits of one's fellow sufferers; and drawings of the places of suffering. 

It's as if they were leaving a "bread crumb trail" for those who would come after; as if to say, we were here -- never forget us -- and if we can do it and keep our dignity then so can you. 

They love flowers and music because when there is nothing to smile about ... when everything has been stripped from you and everyone you  love has been killed and you have nothing left to live for ... you look around to find something and you see the flowers in the field and you hear the music in your heart and you know that there is a God and He will see you through.  Amazing.