Golden Autumn of Latvia, Cesis, Riga

The estate of Drabeshi was owned in 1720 by a Polish officer from the Drabesi clan. Since 1794, the estate belonged to the Blackenhagen family. The modern estate was built in the classical style in the first quarter of the XIX century in 1820. She suffered heavy fire damage during the Russian Revolution of 1905, but was repaired before the First World War. After agrarian reforms in the early 1920s, the building became the first orphanage and then an elementary school. The poet Alexander Chuck worked there as a teacher and administrator from 1925 to 1927. In 1959, the estate became an elementary boarding school in the village of Drabeshi, which eventually moved to a new larger building nearby. Recently, a windmill has been restored as a landmark. It is located south of the village of Drabesi and north of the village of Araishi, now it is usually called the Araishi windmill (Āraišu vējdzirnavas). The mill is closed for restoration. It is supposed to open a museum. The mill is famous for the fact that it almost completely preserved the original mechanism of rotation of the mill in different directions in order to "catch up" with the direction of the wind. Translated with Google Translate

Private ownership by the lake. The vast territory is not fenced anywhere, there is one house and an office building nearby and ... not a soul ... It’s not just a dirt road leading to the territory, just a small mound of gravel. This place is so open to people and nature that I wanted to stand there, take a photo, breathe and be silent and with some ease go further along the country paths of this fabulous country of autumn. Translated with Google Translate

I don’t know how it got here. We just drove until the road was over. I really wanted to know where she would lead :) A place of marvelous beauty. A farm of three houses on the shore of a picturesque lake. Everything is buried in autumn foliage. Two huge dogs joyfully burst into bark and ran out to meet us. Their barking seemed to me joyful either because the dogs had not seen new people for a long time, or because the chance had finally turned up to show their loyalty to the owner. We did not see the hosts, but we saw the beauty. Translated with Google Translate

We got here by accident. I just saw a shorter path on the map and drove off. I must say that the roads here are not that unpaved ... here they are simply expensive, apparently they name the place where they are going to drive. If it turns out, they are indicated on the map. We stopped to photograph a beautiful pond and a well near the water. A man walked slowly to us and smoked a cigarette. We greeted with a nod and continued on our way until in confusion we stopped at the intersection of two paths, wondering which one to choose. The man slowly walked in our direction. He smiled affably and waved his hand in the direction where, I, was going to go, he said: "do not." To my expression I added: “If you want to sit down, then yes.” He went to the barn and sat on a bench with a feeling of satisfaction, crouched in a jacket over his shoulders and put out his cigarette. He smiled. Either to the people in our face, or to the one that helped us, or to a good day, or to wash away life. It was nice, we nodded gratefully to him and returned to the main road. Translated with Google Translate

A gas station is not far from Cesis. A liter of gasoline 95 costs 15 cents. To start refueling you just need to put the gun in the gas tank, payment upon delivery at the checkout to the gas station supervisor. Nearby, an elderly couple zealously filled twenty-liter cans with gasoline. Probably prepared for the winter. She poured and pulled, he lifted and put canisters to one another in the trunk. They worked silently, leisurely, resting on duty, exhaling hot steam in the autumn cold. So they introduced themselves to me: returning home, unloading the car, drinking tea, looking at the apple tree in the garden outside the window. Looking at a lived life. In the silence of the house, in complete silence. Everyone saw something of their own in the apple tree: years, fruits, wilting, dampness, and everyone thought to himself: “just don’t leave before me” ... Translated with Google Translate

Llama and alpaca camel farm. In fact, this was not the purpose of our visit to this place. Although, this is probably interesting and there were many families with children. We searched for hiking trails along the Gauja River, the main attraction of the park. I read about such routes for an hour, two or more, up to multi-day trips in guidebooks, but I could not figure out where they started. It turns out yes, from here you can go on different routes, but it was cold and drizzling rain and we did not dare. A large map with routes and a short description of them stands on the border of the forest and parking, next to a path that attracts adventure on one side and a rather lazy and imposing farm of outlandish pets on the other. Translated with Google Translate

The city of Cesis and the castle of Cesis in the fall, probably, is a special charm. In addition to the fact that more than ten centuries of national cultural heritage and pride are concentrated here for the Latvians, the old castle and the surrounding park are filled with a special aura of romance and the penetration of the rays of the autumn sun, caressing yellowed leaves and filling the sky with blue and thrill. Translated with Google Translate

The infrastructure of the complex is beautiful. There are staged tours of the castle, a convenient and cozy tourist center, an interactive map and a guide with the history of houses of the old city. The castle and the city host music festivals, crafts, exhibitions and fairs. Since 2004, the castle complex was managed by the municipality “Cesis Center for Culture and Tourism”, the purpose of which is the preservation and development of the Cesis castle complex and its integration into an active tourism business. The agency is also responsible for the Cesis Museum of History and Art, the Center for Tourism and Information Development and the Cesis Cultural Center. Translated with Google Translate

Monument to the liberation of Cesis during the First World War. On June 23, 1919, at 6 o’clock in the morning, the combined Latvian-Estonian army liberated Cesis from German troops. The foundation stone was laid on June 22, 1924. The President of Latvia took part in this event and laid a capsule with a description of the events of 1919 at the base of the monument. The inscription on the monument: “No zobena saule lēca”. (The sun rises from the sword). 1919 - 1920. Translated with Google Translate

If my memory serves me well, in Soviet times there was an opinion that there was something in common between the Lyme and Laima Vaikule candies :) In fact, there is nothing more than a coincidence in the name. But there is a lot in common between the Lyme chocolate factory and Israel. Ilya Frumchenko, the owner of the Lyme factory, realizing in 1936 what the Nazis and Latvian nationalists had prepared for the Jews of Riga, loaded several machines from his Lyme factory onto the ship and went to Eretz Israel. Here in Ramat Gan, he continued to make chocolate and sweets, establishing a new factory, only the factory has already received a new name: Elite. The store was not crowded. Saleswoman and us. Smiling pretty, the saleswoman said: Nou photo. Yes, not knowing why, she dropped this simple phrase in a foreign language. “Well, it should be :) for decency at least,” she probably thought, and a little embarrassed, sincerely smiling and with genuine goodwill, insinuatingly said again: “know photo”. It was very funny :) we bought sweets and thanked the woman in the Russian language that is accessible to us all, the more she was embarrassed. And at the exit we were waiting for a big white cat, which, according to the tradition adopted in these places, also softened: “know photo” and ran away home ... Translated with Google Translate

This place is called Manor under the Oaks. The first thing we saw, besides the house in the distance, was huge magnificent majestic oaks. The Ungurmuiza manor is a vast, quiet, calm and wooden building of the XVIII century, in the center of which stands the only one of the wooden baroque manor houses that has survived in Latvia to this day. It was built in 1732 by Baron von Campenhausen as a family estate. Balthazar von Kampenhausen bought Ungurmuizu Manor in 1728. He was the son of the Swedish colonel and vice-commandant of Riga Johann German von Kampenhausen (1641-1705). Balthazar took part in the battle of Narva (1700) on the side of Sweden. After the battle of Poltava, he left with the remnants of the forces of King Charles XII in the city of Bender. In the fall of 1710 he was detained in Poland with a secret assignment on his way to Stockholm, and he was recruited to the Russian service. As part of the Russian troops, Baron Balthazar von Kampenhausen took part in many battles of the Northern War, received wounds and awards and ranks, and in 1725 he was honored to carry the coffin at the funeral of Tsar Peter I. In 1721, ten years later, the Baron left military service and began to equip their estates among which is the Ungurmuizha estate. Not long before his death, he was elevated to the barons of the Kingdom of Sweden. Kampenhausen died in 1738. In 1917, the Cossacks plundered and defeated the estate. The descendants of the Campenhausen lived on the estate until 1939. The last one was Lily. Translated with Google Translate