Latvia’s embassy in Canada has moved to a new location in Ottawa, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Telephone and fax numbers remain the same.
As of March 1, the embassy is located at 350 Sparks St., Suite 1200, Ottawa, ON K1R 7S8.
Latvia opened its embassy in Ottawa in 1994. The current ambassador, who began his tour of duty in 2003, is Atis Sjanīts. Latvian also has honorary consuls in Montréal, Toronto, and Victoria, British Columbia.
Rīga is the 63rd most expensive city in the world, but the Latvian capital is less costly than either of its Baltic counterparts, according to a new study by the Swiss banking group UBS.
Oslo, Norway, tops the list of the bank’s latest “Prices and Earnings” study, UBS announced in a Feb. 28 press release. The study updated the bank’s 2003 ranking of purchasing power in 71 cities around the world.
Copenhagen, because of the changing value of Denmark’s national currency, has risen to the second most expensive city, while cities in the United States have become relatively less expensive.
“The weak U.S. dollar has seen U.S. cities fall in the global price rankings, so that a shopping spree in the U.S. is now an attractive proposition for Europeans,” UBS said.
Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, ranked 47th, between Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Manama in Bahrain. Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, ranked 52nd, between Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Caracas, Venezuela. Rīga, meanwhile, was listed between 62nd-ranked Lima, Peru, and 64th-ranked Sofia, Bulgaria.
As a measure of purchasing power, the study also looked at how many minutes a person has to work to afford a Big Mac hamburger. In Rīga, it’s 44 minutes, while in Tallinn it’s 46 minutes. In Vilnius, however, a person would have to spend nearly an hour—57 minutes—to earn the sandwich.
While the March 1 deadline for submitting proposals by mail is just around the corner, the Latvian Foundation will accept e-mailed proposals through March 10, the grant-making organization has announced.
The U.S.-based foundation supports educational, artistic and literary projects, scientific research and cultural events related to the Latvian people and their ethnic identity. Since the foundation was created in 1970, it has granted more than USD 1.3 million in support for projects worldwide.
The foundation seeks proposals in three different monetary categories: small projects requesting up to USD 2,000 in funding; medium projects requesting USD 2,001 to USD 5,000; and large projects requesting from USD 5,001 to USD 8,000.
The foundation’s board of directors will review all proposals and decide which to put to a vote of the foundation’s members. Members are expected to cast ballots this autumn and results are to be announced in November.
Last year the four largest projects receiving funding were for the planned performance of the musical “Eslingena” in Latvia, for the film Sibīrijas bērnu atmiņas, for a youth-oriented Web site focusing on Latvian history, and for an electronic book on Latvian oral history durng the 20th century.
Further information is available from the Latvian Foundation’s new Web site, www.latviesufonds.info (Macintosh users of the Safari browser may encounter problems viewing the site).
