Candidates’ posters in Helsinki while the presidential election day (first round) was just a snowball’s throw away.
Author Archive for Henrik Duncker
The Liepaja–Ventspils narrow gauge railroad had been out of operation already for decades. In 2011 the wooden rail sleepers from Kapsede region were removed. Being hazardous waste, EU support was granted for shipping them to Sweden for safe processing.
Peculiarly around Christmas and New Year the air of Kapsede had a constant odor of creosote fumes. It turned out that mounds of rail sleepers had been driven to the communal heating house: the local school was being heated by burning carsinogens.
A newspaper page peeks from under a layer of wall paper, telling of the 1991 events in Riga.
Some three years after Soviet Union collapsed most of the large block houses of Liepaja’s Karosta (the military harbour) became deserted. Gradually all usable material was removed leaving just rubble and remains of wall covering.
Skede is by the sea about seven kilometres from Kapsede. We drove there on the windy Saturday to see the waves and to fly the kite. After seven consecutive loops the kite plunged behind the drying pine trees on the dune. This made me think of our drive to Skede two years earlier. As we stopped the car its kilometre reading was 77777, as if the car prompted that dunes a bit further south were the scene for the largest massacre in Liepaja during the Nazi occupation of 1941-45. During those years Liepaja’s Jewish population was practically annihilated.
In attempts to deal with this grim chapter of history, no less than three memorials have been erected in Skede. First, in the 1960′s appeared an obelisk which explains how “more than 19000 Liepaja citizens were murdered by Hitlerist attackers”. Contrary to the text, most of the killers apparently were Latvians. The larger text “Forever remembering the Soviet patriots!” is not on par with the site’s connection to the Holocaust.
In 2005 was built another, monumental arrangement in the shape of a seven-branched candelabrum, which is dedicated to the perished Jewish community.
Due to its dimensions this monument is difficult to photograph. Peculiar enough, still at the time of this writing you won’t see it on satellite maps — instead an empty field only.
The following year a third, modestly proportioned memorial stone was placed to balance the other two. It recognizes all the thousands who perished here, including Jews and war prisoners or people who helped them, and the ones who resisted the occupiers.
Oddly the site shares a foul-smelling entry route with Liepaja’s waste-water treatment plant — which you can see on satellite maps. Due to its dimensions this faculty also is difficult to photograph and I won’t even try to.
Moves proudly presents the Unofficial Saturated Kapsede Postcard. Featuring the beloved Dancing Ash Tree on the left:
We found a small (work)shop in Liepaja and bought this portrait by a Liepaja Art School student. While the painting was nailed directly onto the wall, I wanted some old photos framed.
I went down in the cellar to spray paint a few frames. The cellar was a good escape from the mediterranean style heat which had been on for days. Frogs live there. And it has an adorable interior too.
Kapsede village sort of stretches between two centres. The landowners in the middle wanted to stop village dwellers from using a communally paved and lit route leading through their land—which arrangement has worked for decades if not centuries. There was strong resistance as the only other interconnection is the narrow unlit highway. Many school kids must get through daily. As compromise a narrow passage with a high fence was built through the private land. In there you go, pushing a baby carriage wondering if it will slip past the lamp post on which a red sign warns “Beware of the angry dog.”
Another hindrance on the route appeared yesterday. We got a brief gale and a fairly tall lime tree said krraack. This one will be easily solved though.
Last weekend we took a nice canoe ride with kids in the Ogre river. (Sorry: the river pictures are from May 2010 after the flood.)
A healthy beaver population takes care of forest management here.
Whoever doesn’t share beavers’ view in arranging vertical objects, will probably rest their minds in the local shop instead:
Last week we started driving towards southern Latvia. The first night we slept in Tallinn.
The second night we spent in Vecpiebalga. (Tagliatelle con mosquitoes for dinner.)
In Berzkrogs we stopped for refreshments.
In Odzene (~Adderley) we saw that storks were the castle’s only inhabitants.
The midsummer night and day was relaxing — also for the gigantic sheatfish we didn’t catch from river Daugava.
On the way back up we stopped for very nice ice cream in Skriveri. A sign on the door reads “We don’t know when this shop is open. Sometimes it is, sometimes not.”
This morning I went to see the Local Time exhibition. Not mine obviously but another one in Riga with the same title. You see, just two days before my exhibition opening I heard that Riga Goethe institute will open almost simultaneously a poster exhibition of Stefan Koppelkamm’s long-term project Local Time — which I only managed to see on the last day of mine.
The morning was as rainy as yesterday, topped with strong wind. Again many umbrellas passing by the gallery. I was passing time by taking pictures of them. Between 12:30 and 14:00 local time.
Riga, 7 pm local time, an umbrella walked into the gallery carrying a well dressed somewhat tipsy man. He (the man) pointed to this picture and said (in a mix of Latvian, German, English and Russian) that this is not interesting at all.Then he gave me a long list of all the old cars from the 30′s he has collected and restored and of the precious medal he has won for one of his cars in Rostock. After this he listed all the places he has given concerts in — around the world, of course. He was not able to finish his proud description on how fine a house he owns on the other side of the river because I had to answer a phone call.
Speaking of cars, this morning I placed my old bumpy Citroen in a guarded parking lot. While paying for the service, the watchman bitterly told me how he “can’t understand why Latvia is in such dire straits, so many clever people we have. Here are no chances. Here I sit all day long and all I see is cars. Only cars. This is no life.”
Riga. 7 pm local time. An umbrella walked into the gallery carrying a well dressed somewhat drunken man. He (the man) pointed to this picture and said (in a mix of Latvian, German and English) that it is not interesting at all.
He then gave me a long list of all the vintage cars he has collected and restored and he told of the precious medal he has won for one of his cars in Rostock. After that he listed all the important places he has been to – around the world, of course. He did not quite manage to accomplish his proud description of how fine a house he owns on the other side of the river because I had to answer a phone call.
Speaking of cars, this morning I placed my bumpy Citroen in a guarded parking lot. While paying for the service, the watchman bitterly told me how he “can’t understand why Latvia is in such dire straits, so many clever people we have. Here are no chances, no work. Here I sit all day long and all I see is cars. Only cars. This is no life.”
I am attending the gallery during the two last days of the exhibition. It is raining here in Riga. Umbrellas are passing by the gallery window dragging people beneath. An hour can go before any of the umbrellas decide to take a look in. I feel a curious sympathy with gallery supervisors.
Local time 3 pm. A girl is travelling by train from France to Japan and stops in Riga and ends up in the gallery. She accepts a copy of the Survival Handbook to accompany on her 8-day journey.
On Wednesday I will close here and take the exhibition to Ventspils, to Juras Varti culture house. Opening on Friday, local time.
I am attending the gallery during the two last days of the exhibition. It is raining here in Riga. Umbrellas are passing by the window dragging people beneath. An hour can go before any of the umbrellas decide to take a look in. I feel curious sympathy with gallery supervisors.
Local time 3 pm. A girl is travelling by train from France to Japan and stops in Riga and ends up in the gallery. She accepts a copy of the Survival Handbook to accompany on her 8-day journey.
On Wednesday I will wrap up here and take the exhibition to Ventspils, to Jūras Vārti culture house. Opening on Friday, local time.