“I am not so different in my history of abandonment from anyone else after all. We have all been split away from the earth, each other, ourselves.”

Susan Griffin

Abandonment. It’s an unmistakeable and striking feature here in Daugavpils, Latvia. The city is dotted with a large number of unoccupied or abandoned buildings. In other places I know, Portland, Maine, or Budapest, Hungary, for example, these properties would occupy the dreams of developers. Not so here, with a continuously shrinking population and lower average incomes than in other parts of Latvia.

Since the Russians departed in the early 1990’s, the factories have withered, and the belts, tightened. But hopefully, the once more vibrant and prosperous past here, is, as Shakespeare said in his play, The Tempest, prologue.

Even in their emptiness, even in their solitude, there is a kind of steadfast beauty and quiet promise of hope.

Flowers, perhaps a sign of hope, adorn this window ledge in an otherwise abandoned neighborhood