I often write about the city where I lived 18 out of 23 years of my life – Daugavpils. And now I'll write some more, but not just like that, but with photos taken from one heck of a height. To make things easier to understand, you can also take a look at Wikimapia. Shot by Sergey Perevalov, and who was the pilot - I don't know. All photos are clickable, the originals are on myphoto.
General view towards Riga
This is a general view towards Riga. On the right goes the Daugavpils-Riga highway, the river, naturally, is called the Daugava, and it runs through the entire territory of Latvia. It starts in Russia under the name of the Western Dvina, and ends in Riga with a super wide estuary and four bridges, about which I already wrote somehow. Its length is 1020 KM, if I'm not mistaken.
Lake Shunyu
And this is a successful photo of Lake Shunyu - the second largest in Daugavpils. Latvia is traditionally divided into 4 regions - Zemgale, Kurzeme, Vidzeme, and Latgale. Daugavpils is located in Latgale (Latgalia in Russian), which is not without reason called the land of blue lakes. We have just a wild number of lakes here, many of them are connected by channels and small rivers, of which there are also plenty. What is at the bottom of the photo is called the Northern Town. The private houses in the background are the Forstadt, and the high-rises on the top right are my native Novy Forstadt, unsuccessfully renamed from the Pervomaysky neighborhood. Unsuccessfully - because it's easier to say "Pervomayka", as all the locals still do. Besides, the first of May is a public holiday in Latvia, and the name no longer holds any communist meaning.
Pay attention to the mansions in the center - such sprouts of capitalism have started appearing everywhere in the last few years. At the same time, everyone complains about extreme poverty and living in misery. Cognitive dissonance, though.
The "Novy Forstadt" neighborhood
Here is where I live. It'll be seen better in the next shot.
Novy Forstadt closer up
My building is the longest one, located horizontally on the right in the center of the photo. Actually, there are two of them like that, and the people dubbed them "Great Wall of China N1 and N2". A great example of a word that is contradictory in its essence. I forgot what such a word is called, let the readers give me a hint. On the top right, you can see my beautiful rails and railcars.
Lake Shunyu from a different angle
Lake Shunyu, if you fly even further back
If you fly even further back, a general panorama is visible. My neighborhood is on the right above the center of the photo. In the middle is the bypass leading to the city center.
Central Square (Vienibas Laukums)
The central square, where a hotel was recently restored, which at the same time changed its name from the boring "Latvia" to the stylish "Latgola". Along the way, they attached a Norwegian Rimi supermarket to the hotel, famous for its high quality and equally high prices.
Shopping center "Ditton"
This is what the city center looks like from above. My school is on the left across the road from the shopping pavilion with a huge flat gray roof below and to the left of the middle of the photo. When I was in school, the pavilion was small and dirty, but we still ran there on breaks to buy all sorts of crap. The hotel and square from the previous shot are here at the bottom right. Way above my school, hiding among the five-story buildings and trees, is the kindergarten where my mom works, and which I maliciously skipped.
Bus terminal and railway station, the city center is more to the left
The yellow sticks are Polish "Solaris" buses, which the previous city council preferred over "Mercedes". Spiteful critics say that the Mercedes ones were much cheaper. Their opponents say that "Mercedes" would have more than made up for it on the cost of spare parts. I tend to believe the latter - why on earth would a Mercedes be cheaper than the Poles? In the background is the railway station, through which quite a few large trains pass - mostly from Belarus and Lithuania.
The stadium, count's pond, and LatRosTrans
I'm definitely going to confuse everyone, oh well. The inhabitants of the city will figure it out, and the rest won't understand what is where anyway, unless they are surveyors by profession. LatRosTrans is where my dad works, along with his colleague Sergey, who took all these photos.
A nice panorama of the "Novoe Stroenie" neighborhood
I never thought about it, but now it seems to me that "Novoe Stroenie" (New Construction) is a funny name. In the center, you can see the only twelve-story building in the city (the red one), not counting the central hospital, which we will see later. The red and tricky building above it was dubbed the Bastille by the people, because of its narrow loophole windows and general resemblance to a fortress. In the background is the "Lokomotiv" stadium.
Lake "Bolshie Stropy"
When you are surrounded by something, you don't think about its meaning. Why is the lake called "Stropy"? The little speck in the background on the right is the promised city hospital. The body of water in the foreground is a lake with the optimistic name "Gubishche".
All the same, from a higher altitude
Maximum security prison "Stone Flower", also known as the "Troika"
And this is in a completely different direction. This bridge is the third one in the city, and right behind it on the right is a maximum security prison. There are only two prisons in the city, the first one is called "White Swan".
The "Troika" prison close-up
General view
And to make sure I didn't deceive you, and that the photos were taken from a flimsy and dangerous flying contraption, here is the last photo as a wide shot. The bridge that was in the very first photo is behind the photographer, and it's not in the picture. Ahead is the bridge that was in the previous photo with the prison. In the middle on the left is the city center, in the middle on the right is the "Griva" neighborhood.