More Take note – story published 1 year and 2 months ago Around 270 children attend the Krustpils Secondary School Last year the rural Varieši Primary School was added to it and the education process takes place in two buildings with over 200 children in Krustpils and around 50 in Varieši If the new teacher wage funding model is introduced the school will be subject to quantitative criteria for urban schools - the school must have 360 pupils in the first nine forms to receive public funding Jēkabpils City Council has decided to address the issue by changing the school's legal address to Varieši the local government would have to set aside 260 thousand euros a year to maintain the school The final decision will still have to be made by Members this Thursday but the Coalition has already agreed on this the Ministry of Education and Science has a different view. Education Minister's advisor Ramona Urtāne said that she is sad about the "municipality's reluctance to work towards an efficient school network" there are similar ideas in several other municipalities “There are municipalities where the registered office for schools is the address of the City Council and it is clear that there is no learning happening there So let's register the actual addresses,” Urtāne said in a statement adding that the Jēkabpils City Council's plan to circumvent the rules will not work Urtāne pointed out that the quantitative criterion is only one of the indicators to be taken into account in municipalities Local authorities must now make substantial efforts to clean up the network and if they can justify the vital importance of a particular educational institution for the municipality they will continue to receive public funding even once the new conditions have entered into force Select text and press Ctrl+Enter to send a suggested correction to the editor Select text and press Report a mistake to send a suggested correction to the editor The project will electrify 308 km of Latvia’s main east-west railway network to replace diesel-powered locomotives This is expected to increase transport efficiency encourage the use of environmentally friendly technology and align the country’s infrastructure with the requirements of EU and national regulations for core railway network development The overall aim is to strengthen the international competitiveness of the Latvian railway transport corridor The national transport development strategy document – Transport development guidelines for 2014-2020 – makes the extension of electrified railway lines by 20 % a priority At present only 14 % of Latvia’s rail network is electrified A total of 758.5 km of overhead contact lines will be installed to cover the aforementioned sections The catenary system is designed to allow for a maximum speed of 160 km/h for passenger trains and 120 km/h for freight trains.  Rēzekne and Daugavpils and high-voltage grid connections will be provided Outdated signalling equipment will be replaced and communications systems improved A modern supervisory control and data acquisition equipment (SCADA) system will be put in place and the depot in Daugavpils will be adapted to service and maintain electric locomotives Electric traction is currently only used for passenger transport The project’s investment in modern technology will make operations along Latvia’s east-west rail corridor more efficient and contribute to improving the country’s economic output Substituting diesel locomotives with electric ones that run on locally generated electricity will improve Latvia’s energy independence Between 40 million and 50 million tonnes of freight is hauled through Latvia annually and goes through the country’s two main ports – Riga and Ventspils More coal is expected to come through Latvian ports due to increased Russian coal production Germany and Poland.It is anticipated that the reduced cost of transporting freight through the Baltic states will result in more volume flowing through the country which will boost economic development and employment Latvia is looking to reduce dependency on Russia–EU trade due to sanctions and political uncertainty about trade relations between these two blocs Other potential sources of freight traffic Latvia is keen to attract are from China into Europe and from India via Iran and Latvia into Europe Total investment for the project “Latvian railway electrification” is EUR 533 582 065 with the EU’s Cohension Fund contributing EUR 318 556 362 through the “Growth and Employment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period The investment falls under priority Axis 6 “Sustainable Transportation System” Take note – story published 8 years and 6 months ago Latvia's national rail company Latvian Railways told the press Wednesday that the electrification project of Latvia's railways will begin on the line towards the port city of Ventspils (northwestern Latvia) The government decision over the course of electrifying Latvia's rails is expected in late October During the first stage of the project from 2019 to 2023 the Daugavpils-Krustpils line and the Rezekne-Krustpils line on the route to Ventspils will be electrified The projected cost of the first stage is €660m While in the second stage between 2020 to 2025 the Krustpils-Skirotava and Daugavpils-Indra lines on the route to Riga will be electrified €347m worth of EU cohesion funding is available for this project for the EU's 2014 to 2020 planning period Latvian Railways board chairman Edvīns Bērziņš said that this direction was picked as it's more suitable technically the company will wait for the Rail Baltica project to be carried out so that systems planned for that rail can be used for the electrification process It's expected that the electrification will reduce pollution and noise while making Latvia's transit industry more competitive.  The electrification process aims to increase the proportion of electrified rails in Latvia to 59% of the total from the current 14% by 2030 Below is an infographic showcasing the proposed electrification process the associated costs and expected benefits Take note – story published 9 years and 7 months ago The Riga-Moscow train was stopped in eastern Latvia on Sunday evening after a bomb alert which quickly turned out to be a hoax a spokesman of the Latvian state-owned railway company confirmed to BNS that they had received a phone call about a bomb on the Riga-Moscow train The train was stopped at Krustpils in eastern Latvia and passengers were asked to get out to let bomb experts search the train The Latvian National Fire and Rescue Service (VUGD) also confirmed the information saying that the search had been completed by around 11 p.m on Sunday and that no explosives were found on the train The train was allowed to continue its way to Moscow ka brīdis Krustpils Kultūras namā bija tik īss Koncerts bija lielisks- trīs vilciena pasažieres spēlēja vijoli un klavieres Take note – story published 3 years and 6 months ago By the time Wilhelm Neumann had acquired an official construction permit of the Russian Empire in 1895 he had an illustrious career behind him as the Daugavpils City Architect Numerous buildings had been made after his designs there in the largest city in the Latgale cultural region the city hospital and court all bear his signature The city’s features have been influenced by his red brick architecture as attested impressively by the restrained neo-gothic Martin Luther Cathedral at Baznīckalns but his ancestry is to be traced elsewhere He was born in 1849 in the town of Grevesmühlen in Mecklenburg Wilhelm’s family moved to Krustpils in the Vidzeme cultural region He started working at the early age of fifteen becoming an engineer apprentice at the Rīga–Daugavpils railway office that was building a section of the Rīga–Vitebsk railway at the time His boss and educator was the well-known German architect Paul Max Bertschy (1840-1911) Bertschy was the one to awaken the young Neumann’s interest in art and architecture where he became a colleague and close friend of the famous art and architecture historian Wilhelm Lübke (1826-1893) Lübke urged the young engineer to apply himself to the less-researched history of Baltic art such as the Lexikon baltischer Künstler (An encyclopedia of Baltic artists 1908) are even now considered to be works of fundamental standing making Neumann the “founder of Baltic art history” After staying in Germany and travelling across Europe Neumann returned to Daugavpils where he started working as the city architect He wanted to bring in a breath of fresh air into the construction practices of the time which he criticized as insufficiently overseen by the authorities But his attempts at reformation were not successful Neumann devoted himself fervently to research and wrote countless scientific books and papers on the history of European art from the Middle Ages to the early modern period He received a doctor’s degree from Leipzig University at the age of 42 The unceasing art historian continued his practical activities in architecture After passing the architecture exam at the St He was the initiator of a new approach to restoring historical buildings preserving the old according to modern standards he also gave considerable contributions to monument maintenance A total of 47 objects Neumann created in Rīga and across the Baltics testify to his stylistically diverse creative activities public and domestic buildings as well as schools and sacral architecture Nowadays, Neumann is considered to be one of the most renowned persons in Latvian cultural history his most significant work is the Rīga City Art Museum (now the Latvian National Museum of Art) which was the Baltics’ first museum built for the purpose the interior of which Neumann had planned as well was not to the taste of his contemporaries The monumental building on Krišjāņa Valdemāra street was not considered modern It was unveiled in 1905 after just two years of construction He was dismissed from this post by the Bolsheviks