Sometimes I just cannot believe what a corrupt and sometimes plain pathetic people are responsible for managing my country. Well in theory I knew that all the time but now I have the honor to feel it on my own skin. This is the story I want to tell everyone and encourage everyone to re-tell it everyone else who might care (or tell them even if they don’t care… just for the hell of it):

My parents live in small village on the outskirts of Kuldiga, a beautiful place surrounded by forest and nature so typical for Latvia, my fatherland. Additionally, the area is a nature reserve… well at least we thought so. Then a “swedish company” came and deforested everything down naked. Well I am exaggerating of course – in their generosity they left the tree with the swing my father put up for the kids (thank you “swedish company”!)

Sure, formally everything is probably according to law (check out this nature reserve site of my government). That is not even my point. My point is this:

For the past years my friends were asking me: “Reinis, why should we go to Latvia, what is going on there?” and my answer was always this: “Well, not much, but the nature is rich, beautiful and mainly untouched…”

Today I am affraid that soon enough I will have to change my answer to: “Well, not much…”

I am putting up a screen-shot from Google Maps (thank you Google for making it possible) which still shows the forest. As soon as the map is updated I will post the follow-up to show everyone who cares what is left of that once idyllic nature place.