A project open to anyone in Ukraine who wants to study Latvian began in 2025 on the initiative of the Ukrainian National Centre of The Baltic University Programme. The centre is based at Lviv Polytechnic National University and is supported by the Honorary Consulate of Latvia in Lviv and the public organisation International Ukraine–Latvia Friendship Society.
Zorjana Dvulita, coordinator of the centre and of the project Latvian Language, Culture and Traditions Studies, said the number of applications showed how strong Ukrainian interest is in Latvia. More than 80 people applied, and about 60 began classes, split into three groups. Among them were Lviv Polytechnic student Danyil Medvedev and Alla Hrushetska, a staff member of Ukraine’s National Museum of the History of the Second World War. Both said online access and the fact that the course is free helped draw them in. Medvedev said he has been drawn to East European languages and finds neighbouring countries easier to understand when the languages are closer. Hrushetska said Latvian is rare given how many people speak it, so such courses are hard to find.
Participants travelled from Lviv to Riga by bus. For many it was a first visit to Latvia. Dvulita said she was struck by people’s friendliness, openness and smiles, and that the group wanted to practise, at least by greeting people in Latvian. Riga’s beauty and architecture impressed her, and the narrow streets of Old Riga reminded her of Lviv’s old town.
Medvedev was also in Latvia for the first time. He said he immediately felt support for Ukraine and the Baltic love of nature. Looking at Riga, he found something close to his own region, though not in the same style, and he was surprised by how modern and historic architecture are combined. Compared with Ukraine’s large cities, he said Riga did not feel overcrowded.
For Hrushetska it was a second visit. She first came in 2011, her first trip outside Ukraine. She said the group feels safe in Latvia while remembering friends and relatives at home. After a full programme the day before, Kyiv was hit overnight and an acquaintance’s home was damaged.
On the language itself, Dvulita highlighted its melody and some words that resemble Ukrainian, along with its own peculiarities. Teachers pointed out vakars and vakar, whose difference is clear from context. She said motivation and support from teachers mattered so much that participants joined online classes even during air-raid alerts, from shelters. Hrushetska, who has studied Old Slavonic, said that knowledge sometimes helps: the Latvian tirgus sits near the Old Slavonic torg and torgishche.
Learners also noticed different word order, stress on the first syllable and length marks, which is why practice with native speakers, and the trip to Latvia, mattered. They used what Latvian they had whenever they could. Dvulita said even a few words, such as labdien, labrīt or sveiki, can show a wish to speak the other person’s language, and that a smile often follows. She said the main thing is not to be afraid to start. Writing down new words and phrases, and watching television in Latvian, also helped.
The studies cover Latvian traditions and culture as well as the language. Medvedev said a country’s culture cannot be known without its language, and the reverse is also true: knowing what a people has lived through helps explain why the language developed as it did. Culture, architecture, music and folklore, he said, make the language and its history easier to grasp. Dvulita added that going deeper into the culture makes people and the nation easier to understand, and that the group found the facts about Latvia useful.
Dvulita said new studies in English will be announced soon, with more than 90 people already interested, and that cooperation is becoming broader and taking new directions. Medvedev said an opportunity like these studies does not appear every day and allows growth in culture, language and other areas. Hrushetska said the course began in a very hard time, in January 2026, when power and water cuts, a lack of heating and intense strikes started, and that for her it became a real refuge from anxiety.
Dvulita quoted Josyf Slipyj, the Greek Catholic cardinal and patriarch who spent years in camps and, even in harsh conditions, supported Ukrainians and Latvians who were also in the Gulag in cold Siberia. His words, she said, were “Wish for more.” She wished everyone to study, not to be afraid, and to begin.
Latvian public media materials can also be read in Ukrainian. The Ukrainian version of LSM.lv has its own social pages: the Facebook page LSM ukrainiski, the Telegram channel LSM ukrainiski and the YouTube page LSM ukrainiski.