Daugavpils

Daugavpils is the second city of Latvia, close to the Belarusian and Lithuanian borders in the Latgale region, and is majority Russian speaking. Mark Rothko was born here in 1903 as Markus Rotkovitch and left for the United States at ten, and a centre in the restored artillery arsenal of the fortress holds original works lent by his family, the only ones in the Baltics. The fortress itself is a rare complete early nineteenth century bastion fort, still lived in, its ramparts intact and its interior a working neighbourhood.