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PUBLISHED:
The Illawarra Mercury (Wollongong) 21 June 2008
ACCOMPANYING IMAGES Accompanying images were taken by Sandra Burn White, a freelance photographer whose work forms an essential backdrop to John Rozentals' travel stories. She has also built an extensive ALBUM OF IMAGES which are available for purchase and can be perused on her site: www.sandraburnwhite.com.au
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Ligo 2008 — Latvia's biggest party It may not quite be the land of the midnight sun, but as JOHN ROZENTALS discovered, Latvians certainly know how to turn the shortest night of the year into the longest party. On the eve of Ligo 2008, he reports on last year’s celebration. WE have only been in bed for a short while, the clock is edging 3am, and the sun is already peeping over the birch trees. Surely we can turn off the music that has been playing outside for the past 10 hours or so. But wait, there are still a few couples dancing beside the river. And they aren’t the younger members of a party that has largely disbanded. These are hardy middle-agers, firmly committed to draining the last drop out of the Ligo (pronounced “lee-gwa”) festivities that traditionally start late on the afternoon of June 23 and stretch well into Jani Day, the longest of the northern summer. Like many Europeans, Latvians treat name days with much the same importance as they treat birthdays, and Jani, or John, Day is the grand daddy of them all. My Latvian-born father tells me there is no direct translation for Ligo, but says that “celebration” and “exuberance” come close. Think New Years Eve, then add a hearty dash of paganism to the pure hedonism of Bondi Beach. And Ligo is definitely a pagan celebration. Nothing to do with Latvia’s dominant Lutheran Church here. This is about keeping away the spirits that live in the forests and make love to the morning mist. But there are significant differences, too. In Australia, the focus of New Years Eve is on the cities, the fireworks on Sydney Harbour. Ligo is about the countryside. People leave cities such as the capital Riga and head for relatives’ or friends’ farms. And that’s where we are — at Lejas, my cousin Vija’s farm in western Latvia, about 20 kilometres from the Baltic port city of Ventspils. It’s right on the River Rinda near the village of Pope (pronounce that “pworp-e” because Latvians always seem to add a “w” whenever they see an “o”) and not far from Puze, where my father was born and my grandparents are buried. Somewhere I have never been before. It’s emotional, too, because there’s lots of family I’m meeting for the first time, foremost Irma, my last surviving aunt, a tiny but formidable woman whose walking stick miraculously disappears behind her back whenever a camera comes within range, and her two children, Vija, who is proving the gentlest, most generous host imaginable, and Edgars, who I vaguely remember exchanging a few letters with as a child, in times when Soviet authority made communication difficult and, for those at the Latvian end, sometimes also dangerous. And talking of communication, Lasma, wife of Edgar’s son Ints, is the veritable lynch pin. Her command of English is excellent, which is just as well because the Latvian I spoke fluently as a five-year-old has completely deserted me, and when she’s not around it’s mainly about shaking hands, slapping backs, hugging, pointing and drinking to each other’s health. Words are restricted largely to “ya” (there’s no point in trying to say “no”) and “labi labi” (“good good”). And if things look like getting out of hand, there’s always “ay ya ya”. As soon as the festivities begin I’m presented with my headwear for the evening — a lush, fastidiously crafted wreath of oak leaves. It’s a privilege that initially seems restricted to males named Janis, though it also seems to extend to alsatian dogs named Nero and a vast range of inanimate objects such as tractors, sheds and basketball hoops. But it’s the females who take on the peacock role at Ligo, creating colourful, often quite elaborate, wreaths from wildflowers, reeds and foliage. When these are combined with traditional dress, the results can be spectacular indeed. The importance of folk songs in Latvian culture was demonstrated in the late 1800s when popular writer Krisjanis Barons was charged with compiling them into an anthology. By 1915 he had collected well over 200,000, enough to fill six volumes. This has since been expanded to more than 1.2 million items, believed to be easily the largest collection of folk songs in the world. And at no other time as they sung with as much gusto and emotion as at Ligo: All year round I gathered songs, At Lejas farm we are honoured by the presence of two choirs, the local Pope community choir and the Livonian National Choir. The Livs are a distinct and endangered ethnic group who share their origins with Estonians, Finns, Hungarians, and perhaps even Turks and Koreans. For thousands of years they occupied much of what is modern Latvia and beyond, before gradually being driven westwards towards the Baltic Sea by waves of invaders. For the past century they have clung precariously to the “Liv Coast” which runs north-east from Ventspils to Kolka. My cousin Edgars’ wife Zoja has brought the Liv choir with her. Her grandfather was a Liv and she has been a major protagonist in the battle to preserve their cultural identity and their language. A highlight of the evening is a “duelling-banjos-style” confrontation between the two choirs — between two groups of extremely forthright, confident, powerful women engaged in good-hearted but definitely serious competition. The Latvians love for food and the range of it available can probably best the seen in Riga’s Central Markets, which occupy five former Zeppelin hangers next to the city’s main railway station, but that is another story. A miniature version seems to occupy the marquee at Lejas, with a vast selection of cold and hot meats, smoked fish, cheeses, salads, breads and cakes surrounding the keg of especially brewed Jani beer. And there’s also a special Jani cheese, made from curd and flavoured with carroway seeds. It’s cut into large chunks, then buttered — yes, buttered — and washed down with mugs of beer. I’ve never tasted strawberries as delicious as the ones in the Latvian countryside and every one I’ve eaten since has been a bit of a let down. I have a few theories about this and I think they’re probably all correct to some degree: that the very long, but mild high-latitude days simply ripen the fruit optimally; the berries are left to fully ripen rather than being picked semi-ripened with a view towards longer shelf-life; and that they plant varieties chosen for flavour rather than size and cosmetics. As at many pagan festivals, fire is a central feature of Ligo. As well as building a couple of bonfires for their guests to sit and dance around, Vija’s husband Janis and their son Gatis are also in charge of constructing, raising and eventually lighting a wood-and-tar-filled barrel on top of a solid pole, entwined, of course, in oak leaves. And so the evening continues. Children play their own games; a few of the young men go for a swim in the river; Edgars tries his luck at a bit of fishing. But mainly it’s singing, dancing, chatting, eating and drinking till you drop. Some of the chat turns the future of Ligo and Jani. During the often dark years of the Soviet era, the celebrations were a light at the end of the tunnel for many Latvians, a chance for them to express their cultural identity and their history. With independence in 1991 came a new wave of national pride and expression, and Ligo was embraced even more fervently. Some wondered, however, whether the next generation and the one after that would continue to regard it with the same importance and emotion. Perhaps yes, I thought, more likely not quite. For us, though, one night at Lejas showed that for the time being the spirit still burns as strongly as ever: All year round I gathered songs, Ligo, Ligo, Ligo, Ligo. |
