Travel Guide Daugavpils

The country's second largest industrial centre has retained its Soviet-era appearance. Only 15% of Latvians live there, the majority of the population being Russian-speaking (or Polish-speaking) due to the proximity of the city to the border and the desire of the former USSR to establish settlers there for its spare parts factories. This past can still be seen in the straight line of its streets and its checkerboard plan. Since the end of the USSR and the need for reconversion that this implies, Daugavpils has suffered particularly from the economic crisis which has seen its young graduates leave for England or even recently for Ireland. Nevertheless, it benefits from a strategic location between the Baltic and the Black Sea, and is a stage on the Warsaw-Moscow railway line. Formerly the capital of the Duchy of Pārdaugava, better known as Polish Livonia, Daugavpils has changed names frequently since its foundation in 1275: Dünaburg under the Germans, Borisoglebsk under the Russians, Dvinsk under the Poles. Its imposing fortress, decided by the Tsar in 1772, attacked by Napoleonic troops in 1812 while still under construction, and completed only in 1878, is worthy of interest for its imposing architecture