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Nowadays it's easy to be a cynic and to be proud of it. I won't analyse why, but I also won't deny that - this weakness sometimes affects me... Yet, when I started creating Latvia's Ninetieth Diary - an internet portal, the celebratory year slogan - Lights on for Latvia! was already waiting for me. My cynicism abated, as I felt how challenging and at the same time how serious that sounded. In my opinion, no-one has ever addressed each person in Latvia, or elsewhere in the world for that matter, in such a private way, as does this slogan, inviting one to think about and to do something positive for oneself and for Latvia.

The film by Inara Kolmane "My husband Andrei Sakharov" produced by the film studio Deviņi together with French film documentalists was honored by awards at many international festivals. In 2007 in the full-length documentary nomination this film was presented the grand-prix of the Latvian national film festival Big Kristaps. The interest towards the legendary Soviet academician Andrei Sakharov remains strong untill this day throghout the world. On one hand Sakharov was the father of the hydrogen bomb, on the other - the uncompromising critic of the USSR ideology, a prisoner of conscience, kept under house arrest in the town of Gorky, closed for foreigners...

Although Latvia this year is marking the 90th year of its birth, another anniversary worth noting is 17. This marks the 17th year since Latvia has restored its independence in 1991. That may not seem like a lot until you realise that Latvia's first experience with national sovereignty, democracy and self rule lasted for only 22 years, from 1918 until 1940.

For centurires in Riga the languages of different nationalities could be heard and from church towers the beat of clocks and ringing of bells of different religious confessions sounded. The Dom cathedral, St.Peter's church, St.Jacob's church, the steeples of other churches adorn the panorama of Riga from Daugava. Separated from them, on Esplanade square stands the Orthodox Riga Birth of Christ Cathedral, built only in the end of the 19th century. Thrice-resurrected Riga Cathedral - this is what the parishioners themselves call it. Why?

In 1937 a 26-year old Latvian diplomat named Anatols Dinbergs went to New York to serve at the Latvian Consulate. When the Soviets occupied Latvia in 1940, Dinbergs, like most Latvian diplomats abroad, refused to return. Since the United States did not recognize the Soviet annexation of Latvia, but did recognize the Republic of Latvia that Anatols Dinbergs represented, he retained his diplomatic status in the U.S.

What asked „What draws you to Latvia the most?" I invariably answer: „People". To be honest to the end I add more precicely: not the whole population of Latvia as it is, but certain people that helped me survive my darkest hour, whose cradle rocked on Latvian soil. Undeniably among those people is the now deceased Lydia Durshitz. Latvian by nationality, confectioner by profession, Mother Theresa by blood. My story today is about her.

Just as every country has a flag, every country in the world has a national anthem. Citizens usually sing their national anthem on national days, or to begin important events, although many will sing their national songs spontaneously, when seized by a feeling of pride or patriotism. We hear others sing their anthems most often at sporting events.

A lot has been written on the history of the founding of The People's Front in Latvia. It seems that with 20th anniversary of this social movement apporaching everyone has already remembered everything. Even something that exists only in the imagination of some memoir authors. I have no wish to enter debates with them, so I will tell here about an episode that took place in the summer of 1988 in my personal life. Especially since at home I have material proof stored of the fact that all this did happen on August 2nd 1988.

Once upon a time electric guitars were illegal in the Soviet Union. That's because in the late 1950's rock and roll was illegal in the Soviet Union. Granted, not everyone in the West was crazy about the emergence of rock and roll either. It was energetic, provocative and challenged accepted standards, beliefs and values. It shook people up.

I hummed these words of a Latvian folk song to myself in a car all the way from Braslava to Riga. It seemed the song, composed by an annonymous author in a time far away was directly addressed to Braslava county of our days. But let me start from the beginning.