ABSTRACT
Latvia’s territory under the Soviet regime and its ideological frames. Creative urban
people were moving or commuting to work in wealthy collective farms, thus, continuing
the policies of the pre-war Latvia when rural residential properties, often as second homes,
were donated or rented to creative class. From 1971 to 1991 the Latvian youth work and
leisure voluntary programme LOTOS (“Latviiskii otriad truda i otdykha starsheklassni-
kov”—in Russian) was implemented in schools with the aim to accommodate youth
groups in collective farms, where work in agriculture were combined with an open-air
leisure. The programme had similarities with a national programme, launched in 1935
and subsidising summer vacations in farms for children having a residence in the
largest 15 cities and towns. The programme was cooperation among individual farmers,
children guardianship committees of urban and rural municipalities and national social
care and public health institutions (Valdı¯bas Ve¯stnesis, 1938). The “summer vacations”
children regions’ were created to coordinate partnerships between involved cities and
rural municipalities (Brı¯va¯ Zeme, 1938).
