Since 2017, a number of Latvia's regional cultural and natural heritage sites have been built and restored with the help of co-financing from EU funds secured by the Ministry of Culture (MoC). These include manor houses, castles, churches, towers, parks, museums, stages, nature trails, gardens, bridges, promenades, beaches and other destinations. As summer draws to a close, the MoC encourages everyone to visit and explore the almost 40 The Discovered Latvia sites accessible to people with reduced mobility, including wheelchair users.
For more information, please visit The Discovered Latvia website at www.atrastalatvija.lv.
“Our identity as a strong and creative nation is rooted in our unique material and spiritual cultural heritage, both inherited and invented. That's why the significance of the work we've done in Latvia’s regions with the help of international co-financing secured by the Ministry of Culture reaches far beyond the here and now – it will allow us to preserve the unique values of Latvia's heritage and to pass them on to the future generations,” says Nauris Puntulis, Latvia's current Minister for Culture, stressing that “it is a key priority for the Ministry of Culture to make them as universally accessible as possible to the public, including our people with functional disabilities. A survey of the Discovered Latvia sites carried out on our initiative has pinpointed the necessary improvements that could allow the local governments to improve accessibility in the near future, not only for people with reduced mobility but for those with hearing and visual impairments as well.”
Before opening this season of the tourism-promoting activity The Discovered Latvia, our environmental accessibility experts assessed the sites’ accessibility for people with reduced mobility, including access to the sites, locations of the specialised ramps, the accessibility of parking spaces, the exhibitions adapted to the sites and other relevant aspects. As a result, a description was added on The Discovered Latvia website www.atrastalatvija.lv to each site deemed suitable by the experts, reflecting the accessibility specifics of that particular site.
“We’re delighted to see that Latvian tourism destinations have both preserved our cultural and natural heritage and become more inclusive for people with reduced mobility. Representatives of The Discovered Latvia activity have done a great job in addressing the physical accessibility of the environment. I hope that more and more points of interest will continue honouring their history while making them accessible to all,” says Iveta Neimane, Policy Coordinator and Environmental Accessibility Expert of SUSTENTO, the Latvian organisation for people with special needs.
All the Discovered Latvia sites are arranged in 7 cultural and natural heritage routes that allow travellers to discover Latvia's present through the prism of the past: the Baltic Route, Freedom Route, Light Route, Daugava Route, Jēkab's Route, Livonian Route and Māra's Route. Each of these routes has places of interest for people with reduced mobility.
Since 2017, renovation and construction works in The Discovered Latvia sites have been carried out in four stages, rehabilitating more than 60 cultural and natural heritage sites in 40 local governments throughout Latvia, as well as creating and developing new cultural and tourism services. Work is still ongoing at some sites and will be completed by the end of 2023. Of the total investment amounting to EUR 120,888,186.97, EUR 68,359,170.24 is European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) financing, EUR 52,103,171.47 is State and local government financing, while EUR 425,845.26 is private investment. The funding from the MoC was open to local governments from all over Latvia, with their selected project partners. Participants were selected on the basis of their project’s international and national importance, as well as their relevance to the development strategies of the according local governments.
The Ministry of Culture administers the ERDF investments in the preservation, protection and development of cultural and natural heritage in Latvia's regions in Rounds 1 and 2 of the specific objective 5.5.1 “Preserve, protect and develop significant cultural and natural heritage sites and services related thereto”, under the Operational Programme “Growth and employment”, priority axis “Efficiency in the use of environmental protection resources”.
