Cēsis, is a town in Latvia located in the northern part of the Central Vidzeme Upland. Cēsis is on the Gauja River valley, and is built on a series of ridges above the river, overlooking the woods below. Cēsis was selected to be one of the candidate cities for the title of the European Capital of Culture 2014.
Cēsis skyline
Ruins of the Cēsis Castle
View of Cēsis in 1793
Saint John the Baptist Lutheran church in Cēsis
Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east, Belarus to the southeast, and shares a maritime border with Sweden to the west. Latvia covers an area of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi), with a population of 1.9 million. The country has a temperate seasonal climate. Its capital and largest city is Riga. Latvians belong to the ethnolinguistic group of the Balts and speak Latvian, one of the only two surviving Baltic languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Russians are the most prominent minority in the country, at almost a quarter of the population.
Turaida Castle near Sigulda, built in 1214 under Albert of Riga
Latvians national rally in Dundaga in 1905
Jānis Čakste (1859–1927), the first president of Latvia
Red Army troops enter Riga (1940).