Amatciems

Geographical position

Amatciems is located in the hilly area of ​​the Vidzeme Upland , 80 km from Riga and 12 km from the city of Cesis . Near the village are the national highway A2 and the Riga-Lugazi railway line . You can get into the settlement on the regional highway P31 (on the site connecting Cesis and Erglie ) ^[1] .

The initially built-up area occupied 150 hectares, in the direction from the P31 highway along the railway and the Amata River ^[1] . Then, additionally, two more sites began to be developed, with an area of ​​20 and 30 ha ^{[2] [3]} .

Landscape

The techniques of landscape architecture have been applied to the occupied plot. Initially, only two water bodies were located on it - Lakes Melnezers ( Latvian. Melnezers ) and Vekis ( Latvian. Vēķis ). Now the number of reservoirs exceeds 30 (of which up to 10 are large, with an area of ​​5-6 ha), they occupy about 30% of the site surface ^[4] . The steepness of the slopes is increased from 5-10 to 5-15 degrees (in some places the angle reaches 40 degrees). Today, the site is characterized by a mosaic landscape combining lakes, ponds , small islands and peninsulas , forested hills , lowlands and open spaces ^[5] .

The settlement is a cottage village , the idea of ​​which was made by the Latvian entrepreneur Aivars (Chiris) Zvirbulis ( Latvian. Aivars Zvirbulis ). Initially, Zvirbulis was engaged in printing and publishing business: he owned the Riga cartographic publishing house Jāņa sēta , also the printing house of the same name (subsequently acquired by the Preses nams printing house) and a cartographic store ^[3] . A land plot of 3 hectares near the Amata River was acquired by the entrepreneur for his own residence. Then, the Russian crisis of 1998 negatively affected the business, after which Zvirbulis sold the printing house and began to buy land near his estate in order to create a park ^{[2] [3]} .

The idea of ​​building a village arose by chance; development of Amatciems as a settlement begins in 2004 ^[1] . The sale of land constituting the first phase of the project was completed in 2013, the second phase is being developed ^[2] . As of the beginning of 2013, the cost of investments in the creation of infrastructure amounted to 21 million euros ^[3] . The construction is partly funded by Zvirbulis, partly on credit. The first loan for the development of the village was allocated by the future president of Latvia Andris Berzins ^[2] .

When planning the settlement, A. Zvirbulis took the Riga micro district Mezhapark as a model, where people live in harmony with nature. In its functions, Amatciems is similar to the “ sleeping area ”, because production activity is prohibited here ^[6] .

The village is cut into areas ranging from 0.4 to 1.5 ha ^[5] . Each site has a unique landscape and at least one own artificial reservoir. Houses can be placed only in certain places on the land so that they do not look at each other's windows. All house designs are coordinated with the chief architect of the Amata region. Most buildings are log houses and wooden frame houses ^[2] , and the roof can only be reed, tiled or wooden ^[7] . The work is carried out by the company owned by Zvirbulis ^[3] .

As of August 2010 , in the village there were 27 families (72 people). Of these, 12 families lived permanently, 15 visited Amatciems on vacation and on weekends. The permanent residents represented the Latvian cities of Riga, Sigulda and Cesis. Among others, there were both citizens of Latvia (mainly from Riga and Jurmala ) and residents of Russia , Belgium , Great Britain , Italy , Saudi Arabia and Venezuela ^[5] . Among the well-known residents are the Latvian composer Peteris Vasks and the Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova ^{[2] [8]} .

• Golubev R. "Amatciems": a Latvian project of European scale (neopr.) . BN.ru (September 24, 2013). Date of treatment July 6, 2015.
• Dragileva O. Why do people not live in the forest? (unspecified) . Private Correspondent (September 30, 2009). Date of treatment July 6, 2015.
• Pisarev M. S. The role of low-rise housing construction and the problems of its development in modern Russia // Academy Herald: Journal. - M .: Mosk. Acad. Entrepreneurship, 2011. - No. 2 (28) . - S. 134 . - ISSN 2073-9621 . Archived July 7, 2015.
• Chiris promises that there will be five hundred mansions in Amatciems // Dienas Bizness: newspaper. - Riga, February 07, 2013.
• Grīne I., Strautnieks I. Amatciems: example of the creation of a new kind of rural landscape and settlement pattern in Latvia (Eng.) // Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis: journal. - Riga: Latvian Academy of Sciences , 2012. - Vol. 66 , no. 3 . - P. 156-171 .

• Building rules and internal regulations (Russian) . Amatciems.lv (2013). Date of treatment July 15, 2015.
• Jonathan Spa Hotel (Russian) (inaccessible link) . - Website of the spa hotel in Amatciems. Date of treatment August 19, 2015. Archived June 20, 2015.