June, 2013

Latvian Song Festival

Some pictures
click on the thumbnail for the full picture.


Aija Blitte took her grandson to Riga, Latvia, on June 30, 2013, for eight days. The reason was the Latvian Song Festival, which happens every five years. It is quite a spectacle, with 15,000 folk dancers from all over Latvia and the rest of the world participating. Of course, there is also a huge Latvian folk- and art-song concert at the end of the festival, in which 15,000 singers, again from all over, participate. Included are many other concerts, much smaller in scale, some instrumental, some choral. It is a week full of singing and dancing. On the last day, there is a five-hour parade of all participants. In Latvia, every region and village might have a different folk costume, some shown in the photos below. The effect of these diverse costumes, all together, is quite something to see. The first photo is of Riga's Freedom Monument (and the grandson), the second of a very old building in Old Town Riga.















































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