Archive Wonders: When Matches Were Money, But Tilzīte Cheese Wasn't Famous Yet

When modern Liepāja residents complain about life's hardships, archive pages remind us that in 1995, a truly epic battle was taking place here. State Liepāja Match Factory director Līvija Kaufelde spoke of dramatic battles with lighters that had squeezed matches out of the English market. It was about as tragic as today's situation when Spotify squeezed compact discs out of the market, but back then it meant that Liepāja's match production had shrunk by a third.

Meanwhile, theater chief administrator Leons Lileiko celebrated his 60th birthday, recalling a fiery introduction to his workplace in 1951, when the entire stage burned down from an electrical short circuit. Local pensioner Jānis comments: "In our time we also had fire, but we called it work, not an emergency situation." Interestingly, no one was sent to the north back then, which proves that even in Soviet times, Liepāja had a special atmosphere.

Intellectual Rihards Rubīns criticized the celebration of Liepāja's 370th anniversary in 1995, considering it a contradictory thing in the complicated situation. Nowadays, when Liepāja is praised as Latvia's rock capital and music legends are born here, such a skeptical attitude toward celebrations seems almost impossible. Back then, even Tilzīte cheese was still finding its way to fame, and "Kurzemes piena" commercial director M. Sesks complained that the Riga cheese festival wasn't bringing the hoped-for results.

The most interesting fact, however, is that already then they planned to cut down sick trees on Zvejnieku alley and plant lindens from Salaspils Botanical garden. This proves that Liepāja's tradition of changing urban planning schemes is as old as the city itself. The then head of the council's Environmental sector, Gunārs Ansiņš, probably had no idea that his decisions would become part of history.