I often write about the city where I've lived 18 out of 23 years of my life – Daugavpils. And now I'm going to write some more, but not just like that, but with photos taken from whoa what a height. To make things simply 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 Daugava, and it goes 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 mouth and four bridges, which I've already written about at some point. Its length is 1020 KM, if I'm not mistaken.
Lake Šuņu
And this is a nice photo of Lake Šuņu - 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 with good reason called the land of blue lakes. We have just a crazy amount of lakes here, many of them are connected by channels and small rivers, of which there are also plenty. The thing at the bottom of the photo is called Severny Gorodok (Northern Town). The private houses in the background are Forshtadt, and the high-rises on the top right are my native New Forshtadt, unluckily renamed from the Pervomaysky microdistrict. Unluckily - because it's easier to say "Pervomayka", which all the locals still do. Besides, the first of May is a national holiday in Latvia, and the name no longer has any communist meaning.
Pay attention to the mansions in the center - such sprouts of capitalism have started appearing everywhere over the past few years. Meanwhile, everyone complains about extreme poverty and barely scraping by. Cognitive dissonance, though.
The "New Forshtadt" settlement
This is where I live. It will be seen better in the next shot.
New Forshtadt 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, and the people dubbed them "The Great Wall of China No. 1 and No. 2". An excellent example of a term that is contradictory in essence. I forgot what such a word is called, let the readers tip me off. On the top right you can see my beautiful rails and train cars.
Lake Šuņu from another angle
Lake Šuņu, if you fly further back
If you fly even further back, the general panorama is visible. My neighborhood is on the right above the center of the photo. In the middle of it is the bypass leading to the city center.
Central Square (Vienības Laukums)
The Central Square, where the hotel was recently renovated, changing its name in the process from the boring "Latvija" to the stylish "Latgola". They casually attached a Norwegian supermarket of the Rimi chain to the hotel, famous for its high quality and equally high prices.
The "Ditton" shopping center
This is what the city center looks like from above. My school is on the left, across the street from the shopping pavilion with a huge flat gray roof below and to the left of the middle of the photo. When I was studying, 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 down here on the right. Way above my school, hiding among the five-story buildings and trees, is the kindergarten where my mom works, and which I wickedly ditched.
Bus terminal and Railway station, city center is further left
The yellow sticks are Polish "Solaris" buses, which the previous city council preferred over "Mercedes". Spiteful critics say that the Mercedeses were way cheaper. Their opponents say that "Mercedes" would have more than made up for it in 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 big trains pass - mostly from Belarus and Lithuania.
Stadium, Count's pond, and LatRosTrans
I'm definitely going to confuse everyone, but oh well. The inhabitants of the city will figure it out, and the rest will never understand what's 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 "Novoye Stroyeniye" district
I never really thought about it, but now it seems to me that "Novoye Stroyeniye" 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 cunning red building higher up was dubbed the Bastille by the people, because of the narrow loophole windows and general resemblance to a fortress. In the background is the "Lokomotiv" stadium.
Lake "Bolshiye Stropy"
When something surrounds you, 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 "Gubische".
All the same, from a greater height
The "Stone Flower" maximum security prison, also known as "Troyka"
And this is in a completely different direction. This bridge is the third in the city, and right behind it on the right is the maximum security prison. There are only two prisons in the city, the first one is called "White Swan".
The "Troyka" 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 wide-angle photo. The bridge from the very first photo is behind the photographer, and it's not in the shot. Ahead is the bridge that was in the previous photo with the prison. In the middle on the left - the city center, in the middle on the right - the "Grīva" district.