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Riga – More than 16,000 people sung in choir Sunday in Riga to mark the 100th anniversary of the independence of this small Baltic state.
" After a week of rehearsals, we are quite exhausted ," Aija Rijniece, one of the singers, told AFP before going on stage in a very colorful folk costume, adding that the hours of preparation " are still worth it ".
According to its organizers, this 26th edition of the Latvian Song and Dance Festival attracted nearly 500,000 people for nine days in Riga in a huge amphitheater in the forest.
Saturday night, more than 18,000 folk dancers enthralled spectators despite the competition of the Russia-Croatia World Cup football match.
For one week more than 43,000 singers and dancers, two percent of the population of Latvia, participated in the festival, which is held every five years.
The tradition dates from 1873, under the tsarist regime. After the Revolution, Latvia declared independence on 18 November 1918, but this freedom was short-lived. The Baltic countries were occupied by the USSR in 1940, then conquered by Nazi Germany in 1941 before again under the control of Moscow in 1944.
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