“We just don’t eat them as much as potatoes or buckwheat.” However, the Latvian Song and Dance Festival is the biggest event of them all, which takes place every five years. Pumpkins are indeed grown in Latvia, but they aren’t known to be eaten frequently. There is also an annual contest for the biggest pumpkin, with this year’s winner being near 360 pounds. Whereas there is an approximate population of 1.9 million during the rest of the year, the summer solstice brings the country’s population up to 2.2 million. People wear traditional clothing, eat cheese, drink beer, have fires, dance, sing songs, and generally observe ancient folk traditions in celebration of the solstice. Thus, her video focused primarily on the culture and traditions of Latvia, of which there are numerous examples of.įor starters, there is Jāni, Latvia’s annual festival, held on June 24th, celebrating the summer solstice. “Mostly when people study about countries, they start to study geography and political stuff, so I kinda wanted to pay attention to culture and art traditions,” she said, referring to the video she made for her presentation for World Language and Culture Night. That is indeed very small, although Barkanova would argue that there is more to a country than size. Among the foreign exchange students, Valerija Barkanova (12) comes from one of the smallest countries of them all, contrasting with the grandness of the night’s event however, what her country of Latvia lacks in size, it certainly makes up in culture.įor reference, Latvia has a land size of 64,589 km², which is less than a fourth of the 269,837 km² of Colorado.

Also continuing from previous years are student presentations on different aspects of foreign language and culture, including those from our foreign exchange students. The event was raised to a much grander scale than previous years, with the MSMS band playing various songs from foreign languages, a local Mariachi band playing music, food trucks with food from their respective countries, and samples of student-made soup being served by the high school’s culinary program. This year sees the continuation of MSHS’s tradition of sharing cultures from around the world on one very special night: World Language and Culture Night. The relative dimness of the city’s lights compared to a typical American city shows how traditional the country is, with mainly signs and lamp posts illuminating the city. Latvia’s capitol city of Riga is shown at night time.

Latvia toothfairy traditions