The Goldsteins/Glazers are taking over...

So I’ve talked briefly about my Latvian cousin but don’t think I ever actually explained that whole situation… And it’s an odd and magical one:

            When my dad used to say that we are related to everyone I thought he was joking. Alas, he is a wise man. Sometimes it pays to have the most common last names ever. So, when my family tracking cousin emailed me to say we had family in Latvia, I rolled my eyes and said, “of course we do.” Then I got an email from my cousin in Latvia and the eye rolling ceased. Turns out I have a 19 year old cousin who studies law in Riga, lives with her mother in a teensy weensy town called Aizkraukle (which, like every other town, is 1 hour outside of Riga), and has a rocking grandpa in Daugavpils (which is more like 3 or 4 hours away). 

My grandma’s last name was Glazer so my cousin has the Russian version, Glezerova. When we first met we were not sure we were truly related but after recognizing our shared love of pickles, cheese, shakshuka, and being a vegetarian, we knew we were cousins. But also, we traced our roots to find out our great-great-great grandfathers were brothers, or something complicated like that. So, since my dad taught me that I can always love and trust my family, I hopped on a train with this girl named Dina who I’d met about twice before, and joined her and her mother as they visited their grandpa for a weekend in Daugavpils. Thank goodness you really can trust family.

            So, Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia, but it’s quite quiet and small compared to Riga. Nice, but quiet. It used to have a substantial Jewish population, and then the town faced the fate of the rest of the Baltics when the war came, and never quite rebuilt itself the way Riga did. There is still a nice synagogue, which Dina’s grandfather attends weekly, but most of the Jewish population is aging and seem to go to shul mostly for the food (which, don’t get me wrong, is definitely a core tenet of Judaism). The shul truly is an incredible meeting place for the elderly Jews of the town, providing a much needed outlet for company, conversation, and food that not all babushkas and dedushkas have.

Oh and these soviet style playgrounds:

            The rest of my trip mostly consisted of getting to know my family with the same activities my American family loves: endless eating, pictures, and story telling. Could they be any more related? Even before I arrived Dina’s mom asked me what she could feed me and as soon as we got off the train she took me to the grocery store to make sure I had enough food and the best cheese she could find. So, within moments of arriving in Dina’ grandfather’s soviet style apartment, I was eating the best vegetarian lasagna I’ve ever had, an array of homemade pickled vegetables and sauces, and some truly wonderful cheese that my sisters would have fawned over. And this was just the start.

As I filled my belly with the first home-cooked family meal I’d had in months, Dina’s grandfather, who, remarkably, knows fluent Russian and Hebrew so I could actually talk to him, told me about his family and showed me a family album.

I diagramed the family tree to make my daddy proud and also found out from Dina about his times in Stalin’s camp… Woo. Turns out he was accused of being a political enemy despite not having done anything, because that’s how the Soviet Union was. Besides being amazing for having made it through that, he also wakes up every morning at the age of 93 to do sit-ups and push ups and maintain his physique. I found my new marathon training buddy.

            The rest of the trip was spent watching Soviet era movies with Dina and her mom while Dina’s mom asked what else she could feed me and Dina’s grandpa cavorted around town with his 70-something girlfriend. It all ended like a dream, when, after having to wake up at 5 AM, Dina’s mom insisted on waking up with me to make me Shakshuka before my train ride. But actually. Family is awesome. And my family is better.