The Untold Stories of Daugavpils: A Latvian City at the Crossroads of History and Modern Challenges
Home / Daugavpils history
Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city, has worn many names over the centuries—Dinaburg, Dvinsk, and finally Daugavpils—each reflecting the shifting tides of power in Eastern Europe. Founded in 1275 by the Livonian Order, this fortress city on the Daugava River became a battleground for empires: Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, and later Soviet. Its cobblestone streets whisper tales of medieval traders, Napoleonic soldiers, and Jewish scholars who once made it a cultural hub.
Under Tsarist rule (1772–1918), Daugavpils (then Dvinsk) thrived as a railway junction and military stronghold. The iconic red-brick Daugavpils Fortress, a star-shaped 19th-century marvel, stands as a testament to this era. Yet, the city’s demographics—Latvian, Russian, Polish, and Jewish—often clashed, foreshadowing modern debates about identity in a globalized world.
The Nazi occupation (1941–1944) brought unspeakable horror. Nearly all of Daugavpils’ 15,000 Jews perished in the Pogrom of July 1941 or the nearby Mežciems Forest massacres. Today, the city grapples with memorializing this past while facing rising far-right movements across Europe—a stark reminder of how history can repeat itself.
Post-war Soviet rule transformed Daugavpils into an industrial powerhouse, but at a cost. Factories like Locomotive Repair Works employed thousands but polluted the Daugava River. Now, as Latvia pivots toward EU sustainability goals, the city faces a dilemma: how to repurpose Soviet-era infrastructure without erasing the labor that built it.
Over 50% of Daugavpils’ population speaks Russian as a first language—a legacy of Soviet migration. Since Latvia’s 2004 EU accession, mandatory Latvian-language education has sparked tensions. In 2023, protests erupted over school reforms, mirroring broader European struggles with minority integration.
Just 30 km from Belarus and 120 km from Russia, Daugavpils became a flashpoint during the 2022 Ukraine war. Locals watched as Belarus weaponized Middle Eastern migrants at the border—a hybrid warfare tactic that tested Latvia’s resolve. The city’s Border Guard Museum now doubles as a classroom on 21st-century security threats.
Born in Dvinsk in 1903, Mark Rothko fled to the U.S. before the Holocaust. In 2013, his hometown defied budget cuts to open the Mark Rothko Art Center—a bold statement that culture outlasts oppression. Its exhibitions, from Soviet-era dissident art to Ukrainian war photography, challenge visitors to see Daugavpils as more than a periphery.
Murals depicting Latvian folk heroes now cover crumbling Soviet apartment blocks. Yet, some residents still display USSR memorabilia—a complex nostalgia that divides generations. Artists like Kiwa (a Daugavpils-born collective) use augmented reality to overlay these contradictions, asking: Can a city reconcile its past with its future?
Once called "the river of fate," the Daugava now suffers from Soviet-era chemical runoff. Recent EU-funded cleanups clash with lobbying by Daugavpils Stroitel, a concrete manufacturer arguing that jobs trump ecology. It’s a microcosm of the global climate justice debate.
Latvia’s push for renewable energy pits Daugavpils’ wind farm proponents against supporters of the Visaginas Nuclear Plant (a regional project with Lithuania). For a city that powered the USSR, energy independence is both an economic lifeline and an ideological minefield.
Visitors flock to Daugavpils Fortress’s KGB interrogation rooms, but survivors’ families protest their commercialization. Meanwhile, the Jewish Cemetery, where 3,000 headstones were recycled for Soviet construction, remains half-restored—a symbol of unfinished reconciliation.
Western media often reduces Daugavpils to a "pro-Russian enclave." Yet its youth protest Ukraine war with blue-and-yellow murals. The truth? Daugavpils isn’t a monolith—it’s a mirror of Europe’s identity crises.
With €20 million in EU grants, Daugavpils bets on tech hubs to stem youth emigration. But can it compete with Riga or Berlin? The Daugavpils University AI Lab—a collaboration with Finnish partners—hints at potential.
As NATO reinforces Latvia’s border, Daugavpils becomes a litmus test: Can a multilingual, multicultural city near Russia’s shadow thrive in the EU? Its answer may shape Europe’s next decade.