Rundale Palace

Rundāle Palace (Latvian: Rundāles pils; German: Schloss Ruhental, formerly also Ruhenthal and Ruhendahl) is the most important baroque palace in Latvia, situated at Pilsrundāle, 12 km ( 7 miles ) west of Bauska. It was constructed in the 1730s to a design by Bartolomeo Rastrelli as a summer residence of Ernst Johann von Biron, the duke of Courland. Following Biron's fall from grace, the palace stood empty until the 1760s, when Rastrelli returned to complete its interior decoration.

After Courland was absorbed by the Russian Empire in 1795, Catherine the Great presented the palace to her lover, Prince Zubov, who spent his declining years there. His young widow, Thekla Walentinowicz, a local landowner's daughter, remarried Count Shuvalov, thus bringing the palace to the Shuvalov family, with whom it remained until the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Hill of Crosses

On Sunday we drove to Lithuania to see the Hill of Crosses. This was started in the 1950's as a memorial. When the Soviets found it they bulldozed it under. The Lithuanians put it back up. This went on three times and finally the Soviets let it stay. Now it is an area people visit and add crosses. There were hundreds of thousands of crosses on the site. The Pope visited the site years ago.

Clean Up Latvia Day

On Saturday Sept. 13 ISL participated in the National Latvia Clean-up day. We had about 75 faculty, students, and parents join the fun. We walked in the forest and along the river cleaning up the area.

Billboard in Riga

This was a billboard we saw in the central part of Riga. During the Russian invasion of Georgia there was at least on protest in support of Georgia where many locals placed white roses at the door of the Georgian Embassy. The white rose stands for peace. Since Latvia is part of NATO there is not much fear right now of a Russian invasion of Latvia.

An the the band played on ......

Here is a group of people you don't see very often in Iowa.