I often write about the city where I've lived 18 out of 23 years of my life – Daugavpils. And I'm going to write about it some more now, but not just like that, but with photos taken from a heck of a height. To make it easier to understand, you can also take a look at Wikimapia. Sergey Perevalov took the shots, but who the pilot was - I have no idea. All photos are clickable, the originals are on myphoto.
General view towards Riga
This is a general view towards Riga. On the right is the Daugavpils-Riga highway, the river, naturally, is called the Daugava, and it runs through the whole territory of Latvia. It starts in Russia under the name of Western Dvina, and ends in Riga with an immensely wide estuary and four bridges, which I already wrote about once. 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 number of lakes here, many of them are connected by channels and small rivers, of which there are also plenty. What is located at the bottom of the photo is called Severny Gorodok. The private houses in the background are Forstadt, and the high-rises on the top right are my native New Forstadt, unsuccessfully renamed from the Pervomaysky neighborhood. Unsuccessfully - because it's easier to say "Pervomayka", like all the locals still do. Besides, the first of May is a national holiday in Latvia, and the name no longer carries 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 stagnation. Cognitive dissonance, however.
The "New Forstadt" neighborhood
This is where I live. It will be seen better in the next shot.
New 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, and the people dubbed them "Great Wall of China No. 1 and No. 2". An excellent example of a word that is contradictory in essence. I forgot what such a word is called, let the readers tip me off. In the upper right, you can see my beautiful rails and train cars.
Lake Šuņu from another angle
Lake Šuņu, flying even 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". Along the way, they attached a Norwegian supermarket from the Rimi chain to the hotel, famous for its high quality and equally high prices.
"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 used to run there during breaks to buy all sorts of junk. The hotel and square from the previous shot are here in 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 used to maliciously skip.
Bus terminal and railway station, the city center is further left
The yellow sticks are Polish "Solaris" buses, which the previous city council preferred over "Mercedes". Detractors say that the Mercedes ones were way cheaper. Their opponents - that "Mercedes" would more than make up for it with 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.
Stadium, Count's pond, and LatRosTrans
I'm definitely going to confuse everyone, well so be it. The city's denizens will figure it out, and the rest won't ever understand what's where, unless they are surveyors by profession. LatRosTrans is where my dad works, and his colleague Sergey, who took all these photos.
A nice panorama of the "New Construction" neighborhood
I never thought about it, but now it seems to me that "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 peculiar building higher up 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 "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 "Gubishche".
All the same, from a higher altitude
Maximum security prison "Stone Flower", a.k.a. the "Troika"
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 "Troika" prison close up
General view
And to make sure you know I didn't trick you, and that the photos were taken from a flimsy and dangerous flying contraption, here is the final wide shot. The bridge that was in the very first photo is behind the photographer, and is not in the picture. Up ahead is the bridge that was in the previous photo with the prison. On the left in the middle - the city center, on the right in the middle - the "Griva" neighborhood.