Dzintra Nikiforova Celebrates 90th Birthday in Vecumnieki

Dzintra Nikiforova, a resident of Vecumnieki, a municipality in the Bauska area of Latvia, celebrated her 90th birthday on 14 October. The regional newspaper Bauskas Dzive published an interview with her about her childhood, school days and outlook on life. In her words, old age is a gift from God, and she is very grateful for it. Over the summer she even rode a roller coaster in Ventspils.

Childhood in Vecumnieki

She was born in Riga in 1936 but has lived in Vecumnieki since birth. Her first memory dates to 1941, when Soviet soldiers arrived and she was frightened by their weapons. Her father, Janis Gasins, was Polish, her mother, Milda Tartars, was Latvian, and her grandfather was Lithuanian. Her mother, born in the Selija region, spoke Lithuanian, Russian, Latvian and Polish, yet considered herself a true Latvian. Her father worked as a ditch digger. The family had three children – Dzintra, Skaidrite and Janis – and moved house several times. After the war her father bought a partly destroyed building, hit by a bomb, for 100 roubles and slowly restored it.

School and theatre

After the war Dzintra attended the Red School, spent a year at the parsonage and moved to the White School in sixth grade. She loved literature and theatre, and teacher Lidija Drevinska staged performances with pupils. Together with her sister she also took part in a Dailes Theatre production, "Ugunī", playing servants' children. Her father was a volunteer firefighter, so she watched films and plays from a windowsill. Literature teacher Romancuks introduced her to the poet Rainis as a "bearer of the sun". Her family was spared deportation to Siberia, but she witnessed armed men entering her classroom as parents were taken away.