COVER N. 242 - LATVIA

Postmark: RIGA - 5?   LV-1057 - Date illegible 

Posted on ?; Received on the 2nd May 2023
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I am seriously thinking about having a column on the side of my blog, identifying friends that are as part of this blog as I am, such is their contribution to my aim of having as many postal administrations and origins represented as possible.

They are silent partners to these pages... but for them, how on earth would I be able to add some of the more exotic locations that so frequently drop in  leter form into my mailbox?

Alex, is one such case, and on top of that he reminds me of the lyrics of Sandy Denny's beautiful song "Listen"... in fact it's almost as if he was "a traveller by trade", since it looks like  he's always on the move, visiting post offices in the most unexpected places.

Thank you so much, Alex. I really appreciate your kind attention and care.

This time, I got a cover from him, from Latvia,  although the ride must not have been easy, judging from the wrinkled envelope  corner.... rain along the way, probably.

Latvia, once again stamps conjure to evoke times, good times.... 

I visited Riga once, quite a few years ago. To this day I still have the memory of an outstanding soup my wife and I would always have at the self-service restaurant where we always dinned, not far from the centre ... an esplanade, a blanket on the knees, sipping mulled wine, my first visit to an Eastern Europe  Orthodox temple ... all that and the gentle, immensely elegant sound of a  dulcimer masterfully played by a young lady who filled the late afternoon air with the beautiful intermezzo from Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana.... an avenue full of outstanding Art Nouveau buildings in need of restoration, the museum of soviet occupation full of sad stories, like occupations always entail....

as far as I can tell, using deepl translator, the legends on the souvenir sheet, comprising two 1 € stamps, issued on 15JUN2021, featuring one the flag and the other the Coat of Arms of the Republic of Latvia, read :

100 (years) Latvian Flag and Coat of Arms 

15 June 1921 - the Constituent Assembly of the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia legislated on the flag and coat of arms of the Republic of Latvia. 

On the flag, the dark red stripes represent the vital fluid of all those that died fighting for the country, flanking the pure white stripe of peace... I'm sure that the difference in proportion between the two can also be symbolically read...

As it is usually the case with heraldry, the coat of arms would take a full blog page to describe, so I'd rather let Wikipedia do the work for me... all it takes is to click  here.

Alex mailed the letter from the Capital,  whose name if one of the few things that is clearly readable on the postmark.