Jurmala and Riga

Visit Tango Buenos Aires

The 1st International Argentinian Tango Festival in Latvia took place in Jurmala, the resort near Baltic sea, 20 km from Riga.

Riga is the capital of Latvia, situated on the Baltic Sea coast on the mouth of the river Daugava. Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states with almost 800 000 inhabitants. The Historic Centre of Riga has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is particularly notable for its extensive Jugendstil architecture, which UNESCO considers to be unparalleled anywhere in the world.

Riga is located at the site of an ancient settlement of the Livonians, an ancient Finnic tribe, at the junction of the Daugava and the Riga River, at one point forming a natural harbor called the Riga Lake, neither of which exist today. It is believed that the name of the river gave Riga its name.
The modern founding of Riga is regarded by historians to have begun with the arrival of German traders and religious crusaders in the second half of the 12th century, attracted by a sparsely populated region, potential new markets and by the missionary opportunities to convert the local population to Christianity. German merchants established an outpost for trading with the Balts near the Liv settlement at Riga in 1158. The Augustinian monk Meinhard built a monastery there ca. 1190.