Latvia - Leipaja

The Tirdzniecibas Canal meets the Baltic Sea. Leipaja (Latvia's 3rd largest city) is slowly shaking off its Soviet industrial past to reinvent itself.....

An innocuous block in a suburb hides a dark past..... during Nazi occupation in World War 2 a ghetto was created in June 1942. 814 Jews were crammed into this small area before it was liquidated on 8th October 1942. A plaque in the apartment car park marks the ghetto.....

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Art Nouveau was an architectural movement founded at the turn of the last century. It was characterised by facades of buildings being adorned with elegant lines and geometrical figures in places interchanging with more elaborate decor . Riga the capital of Latvia has the greatest number of Art Nouveau buildings in the world. Leipaja has its fair share too.....

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Latvian towns still have clusters of old wooden houses some now sadly falling into decay.....

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