My culture shocks living in Latvia | Anna Sanderson 

One of the reason our forests and surroundings are so clean - Spring Cleaning. Yes, country-wide Spring Cleaning - it happens every year on the third saturday of April. It's absolutely voluntarily - people can apply and yes, we go out arround our houses, parks, forests etc and pick up trash. Bags are issued by local authorities and left at designated spots for the garbage tracks to pick up later. Lately in many regions instead of picking up trash people devote this time to improving local amenities like playgrounds etc because there is not much trash to pick up.

Actually cleanliness and love of nature is part of our culture. Pollution and degrading of thous values started after occupation and mas influxes of foreign peoples. Situation started to improve after we regained independence. Of course situation didn't improve overnight, we still needed to clean the mess and needed time to reeducate part of population.

I accidentally found your video and as a Latvian I must say thank you for your the kind words. About clean forests I can tell you some memories of my own student years. This was time when movement "Pēdas" was developing. Students like me organized buses and went to forests to clean them. There were tons and tons of garbage we found and carried out of forests. From old building garbage to old rusty gas ovens, fridges and tires. And more and more.... This was years 2000 to 2005. We cleaned things which were there from soviet times. And we want to eliminate this bad legacy from that time when nobody actually cared for throwing out a pile of toxic shale (shifer) in the middle of the forest. This was also start of a movement we call "Lielā pavasara talka", which take place in April. When all the society joined to go out and clean their neighbourhood. This is why we have this clean environment, because we care. And now we are raising our young generation and they already know how bad it is to muck the environment because we can tell them how we gathered all that dirt so they can walk in the grass not being afraid to cut their legs, or walk the forest and pick clean berries or mushrooms, and animals can safely live there and not be wounded or intoxicated with something. My son even is ready to pick some garbage from the street and carry it to the nearest bin, without asking.

About cleaning pathways and houses in winter. If You own property near public space, like in city, You should clean it, because it concerns peoples safety. People falling on ice can result in serious injures, not mentioning getting injured or damaging property, like cars etc, from falling snow or icicles from rooftops.

Wow, what a beautiful account, Anna! It warms my heart so much that I even had tears in my eyes listening. I was born and raised in Latvia, but it's the 11th year now since I live in the US. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I am interested in other cultures as well, so I subscribed. Keep doing what you are doing.

I am from Lithuania. It is clean too because we actually care about our streets and nature. We don't make it dirty. We respect our country. People might look gloomy but they are actually friendly if you don't do anything bad for them. People are careful. Not angry just careful. Special after what russians did in Ukraine. We have a right to be careful and we can't ignore it

as a Latvian a big culture shock for me was how filthy the rest of Europe is it just felt disgusting walking down a street in the uk and there just being broken bottles, wrappers, cans, and even human excrement laying around

This was very helpful! Thank you for sharing your experience! Latvia is one of my potential options for international study. Good luck with immigrating to the next country. Much love ❤

Thank you Anna! I appreciate your perspective.

The bike licenses can be acquired at 4th grade you can still use bikes before that but with restrictions the license is for full allowance and acknowledgement that you know what you are doing

Thank U. I am from Latvia. Welcome. Hope U had a great time in here.

we are distant not socially awkward or anxious and we know that everyone else is the same so most of us are comfortable being ourselves, singing and dancing to our hearts content

I'm Latvian. Nobody ever asked me bike license 😊 Just very rear incident for you. Thanks for kind words! 😊

Hey, nice video! According to the Law, the bike license is needed up to 17 years of age if the person doesn't have a license of other means of transportation (like some light motorcycle or whatever teens may use). When you turn 18, you don't need any license to ride a bike. I'm not surprised if some Latvians don't know it. Many adults have a driver's license, so they think that they don't need a bike license because of that reason, but actually they don't need it at all because they are adults. The "Snow Law" is something that Municipalities choose to apply, therefore not every town has it, but it is pretty widespread as far as I know.

Miss I like how you expelling about this country

Randomly i got to know your channel. Interestingly i got more information about Latvia

Can confirm that latvian cities are by far cleaner than cities in Germany. 😊

It used to be much dirtier, I remember 90's , people was dumping everything everywhere . It started to change only after 2000

if you have car license, you dont need bike one:) but if you are a kid, yes you need to have a bike license, just to drive on the street.

Maybe there is a brighter future to fight for the best thing I can is do what's right and clean environment.

it's debatable whether Latvia or Baltics in general are Northern or Eastern, so I call them both, since Eastern countries count as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. And food...well, if you are picky, take it from local markets and not supermarkets, there you will get as close as possible to natural food and without additives, or as least additives as possible. Just because something is tasty doesn't always mean it's healthy, because MSG exists, though as far as I have went to supermarkets and read the stuff that's inside, you will half of the time going to read such line like "taste enhancer" or "flavor enhancer", not sure how it is exactly in English, but in Latvian it's "garšas pastiprinātājs". It's thorough the world that such thing is used, you just need to look for where it isn't, because it's not often natural. And bike license is for a reason, because people on bicycles don't know rules of the road, since every driver who has drivers licenses knows at least 80% of road rules and signs. So that cyclists wouldn't get in the way and act arrogant on roads (as they tend to be), and considering accident amounts that have happened, government issued an need for licenses for those who travel outside of towns and cities, to know that the cyclist knows the rules of drivers and what they need to know, and what you need to know to be safe on highways etc. And I have heard from people at my work, who have their private houses, they hate this law as well, to clean the road from snow that is next to your house, because you have to wake up early before work and do it, and same after work when you are tired when in the morning the snow is again on the road and thick. It's just another way to cash in for government.

apart from clean and tasty food, I suppose it's correct. Riga and some other places are full with garbage where 'locals' live. Tyres on the side of the road, asbest and building materials etc. are usually left where no one can see (forests). I suppose it's a post-soviet 'this is not my country' attitude food is mostly genuine, but it's a mess getting better (apart from white bread). smoked fish, smoked meat, dairy dairy dairy, root vegetables, pork pork pork, beer beer beer

About the cleanliness - it definitely wasn't always like that. I remember, growing up in the 90s, my local forest was always full of drug paraphernalia, discarded crisp and drink packaging, dog shit... Good changes.

I do what I can. I put bottles to recycle etc.

I never got the bike license. You don't need it anyway after you get the B category license.

i remember once going home and i was in a crowd and some random drunk started singing folk songs and like 20 people joined him

You must have some driver's licence anyway to drive on highways- if you have licence on motorcycle or car- you dont need licence on velo bike. Of course- licence must be approved in EU. And yeah- its very rare incident. I haven't seen close-up police officer in last 5 yrs.

Just stand for 30 minutes by the tower clock in the central terminal - you will enjoy 😂

It's just our way of respect for the nature 😅

What's the linguistic situation like? Is everybody bilingual in Russian and Latvian?

I've had a bike licnece for 8 years, no one has ever asked me to show it

Mums patīk nomazgāt traukus pēc trauku mazgājamās mašīnas.

hi madam I want to know one thing about Latvia

You need bike licensce if you are +14 years old, police will never stop you. Thank you for good words. Best of luck

I am from Switzerland. And bike licence?! 😳 WTF!!!!!!!!!! (ah, olay: insurance🤦‍♂️ Yeah. Right. (ridiculous)

Bike license is only needed for underage kids 😅