University of Tartu Department of Geography Faculty of Science and Technology Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences

Case study report Ape

NORDPLUS 2015 INTENSIVE COURSE 15.05.2015

Name Country University Email Anna Āboliņa Latvia University of Latvia [email protected] Maximilian Brönner Germany (Norway) University of Bergen fm170_2@fen­net.de Opri Orenius Finland UEF [email protected] Adrien Jacquot France (Finland) UEF [email protected] Dāvis Valters Immurs Latvia University of Latvia [email protected]

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Table of contents 1. Introduction 3 2.Case study area 3­4 3.Theoretical perspectives 4­5 3.1. Overview of second homes in Nordic and Baltic countries 5­6 3.2. Conceptualization of “second home people“ 6­7 3.3. Place attachment 7­8 3.4. Motives to visit second houses & place attachment of ​ second house people 8­9 3.5. Community involvement of second house people 9­11 3.6. Second houses in small towns 11­12 4. Methodology 11 4.1 Introduction in the field case: the gate keeper 12­13 4.2 Interview­techniques 13 4.2.1 Snowballing and spontaneous interviews 13 4.2.2 Key informants and expert­interviews 13­14 4.2.3 Semi­structured interviews 14­16 4.2.4 Observation, photo fixation and field notes 16 4.3 Weaknesses and passive problems 16­17 4.3.1 Language as a passive problem 17 4.3.2 Group and public communication 17­18 4.3.3 Dependency on native speakers 18 4.3.4 External problems: choice of time 18 5. Results 19 5.1 General subjective description 19­21 5.2.General description of SHP people in Ape 21­27 5.3 Local involvement 26­34 5.4. Local attachment (and attractiveness) 34­35 6. Conclusions 35­36 7. References 37­38 8. Appendix 39 8.1 Appendix: Interview 39­41 8.2 Appendix: Photos 42

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1. Introduction

Second houses have become an important phenomenon creating links between rural and urban and bringing desired income for many rural areas. However, in addition to possibilities for development, second houses also bring about many challenges and conflicts between differing and confronting interests of permanent and temporary residents.

In Latvia, many popular second house areas may lack exact information about the numbers and impacts of second houses. Starting from the uncertainties considering the formal definitions of urban/rural areas in the Latvian legislation, the rural areas remain unknown even for the officials from state to municipality level. Relations between Latvia’s rural and urban areas are characterized with features like sparse population, high forest density, seasonality, post­Soviet peculiarities and cyclic movement. Like elsewhere in Europe, second homes and rural idyll are important in creating national identity. (Kule 2010, 13).

Inadequate data about second houses on municipality level was also present in our case study area Ape. However, information about second house phenomenon is needed to steer the development to the right direction and to resolve possible conflicts. Using the theoretical framework of place attachment, we aim to reveal something about the different motivations and feelings of second home people in Ape area. In addition, we study the possibilities for second house people’s involvement and their willingness to get involved in the community and municipality decision­making.

In short, our research question is “What are the differences in the place­attachment and community involvement among different groups of second house people”

2. Case study area

The case study area consists of town and parish of Ape, located in Vidzeme, the northern­eastern part of Latvia. It’s a part of Ape municipality, with the town of Ape being its administrative centre. Ape parish borders Trapene parish of Ape municipality, and Alūksne municipality and is also located right next to the border of Estonia (Mõniste parish of Võru county). Ape parish is characterized by its natural resources – forests, agricultural land, mineral deposits (dolomite, sand, gravel, clay, peat, limestone) and swamps. Ape parish

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belongs to the fifth most densely forested area (including land under swamps and bushes) around Vidzeme region, that has a high impact on population density and settlement structure. Main agricultural sectors in the region are crop and cattle production with some farms also practice non­traditional andorganic farming (Apes novads, 2014).

Broken down by types of land use in 2000, the largest share of Ape parish is forests ­ 69,3%. Apes parish belongs to ​ ​ the regional woodland territory and the area referred to as ‘the lungs of Vidzem’. Forest areas in the Vidzeme planning region, which also includes Apes parish, tends to increase, as there are large unused agricultural Fig. 1.1. The location of the case area ​ (made by the authors; background Kikos, 2010) lands, which are not only of little value overgrown with trees and bushes, but also are afforested. Agricultural land in Ape parish constitutes 35,2%. (EMÜ & LLU 2010).

The geographical location of Ape town and parish has a great potential for cross­border cooperation with Estonia. Transport hub, highway A2, E77 (Riga­Sigulda­Estonian border) and P19 road cross the county territory, and have a great potential for transit cargo transport and logistics sector.

Ape is one of the smallest towns of Latvia (980 official residents). Ape parish has a

2 population of 576 residents. Apes parish along with the town of Ape covers 128 km .​ The ​ parish mostly consists of typical rural settlements: farmsteads, groups of them and small villages. The population is decreasing, due to the fact that people move away in the search of work to the regional or national centers or abroad. The existing labor market in Apes parish cannot compete with the job opportunities offered by Rīga, and young people cannot find the motivation to come back and live in Ape and Ape parish. However, between 2011 and 2013 the unemployment rate decreased from 13.4% to 8.1%.(Apes novads, 2014).

3. Theoretical perspectives

We use the theoretical framework of place attachment to study the factors influencing second house people’s involvement in local community and decision­making. We understand second

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house people in a wide sense and conceptualize the phenomenon to include a wide variety of situations where people are staying outside their permanent residence for different reasons. Not only the possibilities and challenges for involvement but also the potential second house people provide for enhancing community development and the challenges second houses create for municipalities are discussed. We also consider the special characteristics of small towns as second home areas.

3.1 Overview of second homes in Nordic and Baltic countries

To own a second home or to have access to one is a quite common phenomenon in the Nordic countries. According to Müller (2007), 50% of the population of the Nordic countries have an access to second homes, and it's even more important in Finland.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the upper class started to acquire second homes, but it was mainly after the second World War that owning a second home became popularized in the society. Müller (2007) partially explains this democratization by the popularization of the cars during the post­war boom. During the eighties, the construction of second homes was decreasing, but experienced an important growth in the nineties.

For the Baltic countries, the tradition of second homes also started in the late nineteenth century. The coastal areas became the place for the resorts of the intellectuals of the Russian Empire as for instance Käsmu in Estonia. The development of these resorts continues during the independence of the Baltic countries after the Second World War.

During the Soviet domination, the tourism was standardized with the allotment of household plot for the workers (small land attached to a rural residence). These second house had a food scale with vegetable supply. After the collapse of the USSR, the houses of these garden villages have been enlarged. The economic growth of the Baltic countries has allowed this development of the “Garden villages”. Simultaneously there has been a growth of construction of new second homes within the Baltic countries.

For the Northern countries as well as for the Baltic countries, the decline of some rural areas compared to the cities is relevant to the establishment of secondary residences (Huijbens ​ 2012) . As explained by Urbain (2002), the distance of a place is often an important criterion in the choice of emplacement of the secondary residence . There is an idealization of the

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countryside among the society, especially due to the urbanization during the last decades (Muller 2007; L Kule 2010). In the collective imagination, owning a second home in the countryside appeared like a return to the countryside.

The owners of second homes mainly consist of the upper and the middle class because the construction and the maintenance are rather expensive.

The phenomenon of the second homes raises some issues, especially about the protection of the environment, particularly in the coastal areas where the Real pressure is important. However, the density remains low in the Northern countries in comparison to the south of Europe. Another issue is the conflict of land use between the tourism and other economies like agriculture or industrial production. Also, the involvement of the second home owners in their living communities as well as the policies of the local and national authorities regarding them are important concerns.

3.2 Conceptualizing “second home people”

The term second home is commonly used to describe a place outside a permanent house that is used for recreational purposes, even though they can also be used for other purposes, for example for professional use. Second home can be either built in purpose or inherited and turned into second home use, a so called “converted house” (Huijbens 2012, 334). There are multiple words to describe the same phenomenon: for example terms vacation residence, holiday cottage, secondary home and summer house can be used instead of second home.

If the concept of second home is rather vague, the concept of second home people is even more. Besides those people who actually own a second house, also people who just spend time in another residence than their main home can be considered as second home people. Their access to the second home can be gained for example through rental, relatives or friends. However, this raises conceptual issues about defining “second home people” in a certain area. Is there some minimum time they should spend in the second house to be called "second home people" of the area? How frequently should their visit the area? Can those visiting relatives also be considered second home people?

In a broad sense, the term second home people can be used in a large variety of situations like when students spend their holidays and weekends at the family home, people always rent the

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same house for their holidays because they have ties with that place (family, friends, emmotional) or people regularly visit the same place and are planning to settle permanently. Second home owners can also be classified in many different ways, for example based on how they acquired this residence (purchase, construction, heritage, renting...), on what purpose they use their home for or by the frequency of their visits. One approach to study the differences between second house people is to use the framework of place attachment.

3.3 Place attachment

There are various different definitions for place attachment, but usually it is understood to describe the bonding between individuals and places that are important for them. The concept of place attachment can be used to study various different kind of processes, for example in the fields of psychology, immigration and mobility studies. (Scannel & Gifford 2009, 1). What makes the issue even more inconsistent is that in addition to place attachment there are also many different words used to describe the same phenomenon and different opinions about the best methodological approach to study it (Hidalgo & Hernandez 2001, 273). In a humanistic geography place attachment is understood as a universal tie fulfilling basic human needs. (Scannel & Gifford 2009, 1).

As there is, according to Scannel and Giffor (2009, 2) no coherent understanding of place attachment in the literature, they aim to create a framework bringing cohesion to the various different definitions. What they propose is a tripartite model of place attachment comprising of the dimensions of actor, psychological process and place. The actor, or the person dimension includes both individual and collective place attachment. At the individual level for example experiences, memories and personal connections and at the collective level shared history and culture or symbolic meanings of the place affect the experienced place attachment. The psychological dimension explains how persons relate to the place and includes the aspects of affect, cognition and behavior. The aspect of affect simply describes the emotional connection to the place, which can be either positive or negative and derive for example from childhood experiences. The cognitive aspect describes how memories, beliefs, meaning and knowledge associated with a place construct the place meaning and the bond to it. Through a connection to a place, people can even see the place to represent who they are. In other words, cognitions of places people can affect people’s self­definitions. The behavior aspect observes

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attachment through actions an individual takes to maintain their closeness to a place. Such actions can include not only proximity­maintaining to one’s place but also for example relocation to similar places as the old one. (Scannel & Giffor 2009).

Roca (2013) has studied the affect and behavior aspects of the psychological dimension of place attachment with the concepts of topophilia and terraphilia. Topophilia can be defined as “the affective bond between people and place, the setting” (Tuan 1990:2, according to Roca 2013, 71) and terraphilia as the affection between people and a place based on experience that encourages them to get involved in local development (Oliveira et al. 2010, 802). Terraphilia can also be understood to mean feeling part of a community (Roca 2013, 84).

The third dimension of Scannel and Gifford’s (2009) place attachment model, the place, can be divided into social and physical aspects of attachment. According to them, place attachment can concern the physical environment because of its characteristics (natural or built) but also because it facilitates social connections and group identity. Moreover, they argue, attachment can also occur especially towards people living in a certain place, towards the community.

According to Roca (2013, 69), whereas in traditional societies “place attachment implied the existence of roots almost exclusively in a single place”, in the modern mobile, globalized world the place attachment can be related to multiple places. Using or owning second homes is an example of a situation where multiple place attachment may occur.

3.4 Motives to visit second houses & place attachment of second house people

It is often considered that the second home owner chooses to live in another home to relax and escape the responsibilities of his everyday life. This wish of tranquility would be the reason for his coming. Urbain (2002) found out that in France, regardless the coastal area, the second homes are located in areas of a very low density. For instance, a large number of second homes owners from Great Britain and Netherlands have chosen the most sparsely populated French department (Lot, Dordogne…). There is a strategy of avoidance but at the same time an important attachment to these place. An indicator of this will is the typology of some second homes, hidden by fence or wall (photo ape).

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In fact, owners of second homes could be described as being something between locals and tourists. Although second house tourism is often seen as recreational consumption of rural space, it might be more than just recreation to the second home owners. Through their regular visits to the area second house owners might develop a feeling of belonging to the community. They may be strongly attached to the rural area also through property ownership or roots. (Pitkänen et al. 2014, 145, 160). In fact, in a mobile society it is not always even easy to define which one is the primary and which one the secondary home because the identity traditionally connected with home might become connected to many places (Aronsson 2004, 76­77). Second house consumption is often seen to represent some kind of an escape from the urban life. It offers a possibility to experience something that is not possible in everyday life, maybe to re­connect people with experiences from their past as well as nature, creating stability within movement in a modern, mobile society (Halfacree 2012, 217). Motives behind visiting second homes can also include seeking peace and quiet, rurality, family life or certain social relationships. So besides from an escape from the urban life, second homes also represent seeking for authenticity, roots and identity. (Aronsson 2004, 77).

Roca (2013) has studied place attachment of second home owners in Oeste Region in Portugal with the concepts of topophilia and terraphilia. He found out that even though second home owners seemed to have quite a strong sense of topophilia, the strength of terraphilia was generally considerably weaker. This means that even though they were emotionally attached to the place, they were not interested to contribute to the local development, were not or were weakly connected with the local community or institutions and did not identify themselves with the local values and goals. Roca (2013, 70) notes that place attachment can also be approached from a developmental perspective, seeing second home owners as local developmental stakeholders. However, for example in his case study, being able to define them as developmental stakeholders would require strengthening their terraphilia.

3.5 Community involvement of second house people

Urbain (2002) has found out that some second home owners want to be involved in the local life to compensate a lack of social recognition in their permanent residence until the point when they are starting to cause controversies or conflicts with local. He takes the example of the inhabitants of big urban areas who find in their second homes a place to express

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their political ideas while the same involvement would be more difficult on the scale of a large city. On the contrary, second home owners who live in smaller city, peri­urban territory or rural area are often less involved in their second home place because they already have this social recognition in their first place of living.

Even though it could easily be expected that those having tighter connection to the community through roots would also be more actively involved in the community, this is not necessarily the case. Huijbens (2012) has distinguished two groups of second home owner, which he calls “homesick locals” and “lifestyle locals”. Huijben’s “homesick locals” have roots in the community, and for them it is important to gather with family or friends and to create continuity. The other group, “lifestyle locals” do not have any roots in the community and they use second homes to create places for leisure identity. What is interesting in Huijben’s study is that he found out that it is actually the lifestyle locals, those who do not have any roots in the area, that are more involved in the community. They are active in the cultural life and take part in the community projects with the locals. Huijbens explains this as the lifestyle local’s need to “prove their worth” through getting familiar with the local history in traditions. In Huijben’s study, the homesick local, on the other hand, were not involved in community activities. They take the role of observers and mainly just aim to “fulfil their own personal needs for place attachment.” According to Huijbens, for those second home owners not active in social or cultural activities, the contribution to community is restricted to buying groceries and maintenance materials in local stores, which however means that they still are contributing to local economic development.

In fact, the impact of the commitment of second home owners is often seen through the spectrum economic benefits for the area. In addition to their impact through consumption they pay some local taxes to the municipalities. Second homes owners can also develop entrepreneurship, creating a network between business men (Hall & Müller 2004). As pointed ​ ​ out by Huijbens (2012), second home owners allow to revitalize the areas often marginalized and concerned by economic difficulties. For the local authorities, involving the second homes owners can bring added values concerning their territories. However, as the interest and needs of second home users in the area might widely differ from the interests and need of local permanent residents, it is often a great challenge to combine these differing views in the development and decision­making of a region or municipality. The integration of second homes owners in the local political life is ​ 10

also sometimes blocked by legal considerations such as being unable to vote in municipal elections as is the case in Finland (Rinne et al., 2014, 3­4). One of the challenges for ​ ​ municipalities is to make the second homes become the permanent homes of the owners particularly from the point of view of local taxes. However for the locals, the involvement of these owners can lead to investments of the local authorities for new structures (roads, power line, wastewater) which are costly to the community (Hall 2013).

According to Farstad and Rye (2013) the literature usually represents locals as open and positive towards new rural development, whereas second home people are represented to be against any change as they would like to maintain the rural idyll unchanged. In their study, Farstad and Rye found out, that as suggested in previous literature, there are many conflicts related to rural development in the second home municipalities, where locals and second home people are often against each other. In addition, locals seem to be more interested towards rural development, because they wish to keep their community viable, whereas second home people are more interested in conserving the nature. However, according to Farstad and Rye, these differences are not as steep as assumed and do not mean that people would only be promoting either development or conservation. Farstad and Rye found out that both second home people and locals have interests for both protecting the rural idyll and developing the area, as long as there are not changes in their proximity. NIMBYism seems to be a common feature for both group’s thinking, even though Farsted and Rye note that the importance given to protecting backyard compared to other interests differs according to the context of different rural communities.

3.6 Second houses in small towns

Small cities are often described as places where everyone knows each other and even monitor each other “to ensure that trustworthiness and reciprocity are generally the norm” (Besser 2009, 185­186). Many interpersonal relationships and generalized trust can also mean high social capital. (Besser 2009, 185). Social capital is usually used to describe the networks of relations between people (Macbeth et al. 2008, 505). High social capital in a community is often seen as a resource to improve the quality of life (Besser 2009, 185­186).

Social capital can be divided into bridging and bonding social capital. Whereas bonding social capital refers to close­tie networks between family and friends, bridging social capital

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describes the generalized, outward­looking and inclusive network­ties between more distant people. (Macbeth et al. 2008, 512).

In rural communities characterized by more narrow, close networks, second houses might have potential to bring something new to the community, to strengthen the bridging social capital. This is because temporary residents potentially might act as interconnectors between their wider socio­economic and professional world and the rural community and therefore bring new knowledge to the communities thus strengthening their social capital. However, how these new influences are received in the community, depends on the characteristics of each community and on how the new thoughts, ideas and interests of the temporary residents meet with those of the locals. (Gallent 2013).

4. Methodology

In this study about second home people in the municipality of Ape, we used several methods to determine between permanent living people and second home people. The period of time in

th th which the survey was held was given from the 10 ­​ 13 of May in 2015. The different ​ ​ techniques which were used in this qualitative approach and the difficulties of our approach are described in the following paragraphs.

4.1 Introduction in the field case: the gate keeper

We were given a gate keeper who could be seen as a local expert to support and introduce the group of researchers into the unknown field study area. In our case it was Liene Abolkalne, an employee of the department of development of Ape. She turned out to be rather passive when we started our studies. Her colleague, Daiga Bojare, was more active in introducing us in the local life as she took us to a side seeing tour around Ape town and the nearby motorcycling track. She was very active in telling us stories about the different houses, their owners and their histories. After Liene Abolkalne knew more about our topic and our needs of specific information, she was really helpful by arranging interviews and sharing contacts of second home people and good informants. This is also a good example that a researcher should have

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ability to react to local conditions and to interact with local gatekeeper to receive the best outcomes.

4.2 Interview­techniques

Concerning the gathering of data from interviews, we decided to carry out semi­structured interviews as well as expert­interviews.

4.2.1 Snowballing and spontaneous interviews

Our choice of interviewees was based on a random selection of people as well as the snowballing system. This technic is used to get additional contacts or potential interviewees by the knowledge and connections of precedent interviewees (Clifford, French & Valentine, 2010). Additionally we gathered information by spontaneous interview which were mostly a result out of spontaneous and informal conversations with local people. A good example is an interview of a local woman which we met because of a canoeing trip along the river of Vaidava. She was interested in our work and started to tell us something about her second home nearby. We were then invited to visit this second home.

4.2.2 Key informants and expert­interviews

Most of the information which was gathered was provided by experts. We defined the word “expert” as a person who has some greater role in the municipality or has, in some way, an advanced knowledge about the processes and conditions of the county of Ape concerning our topic. One of these experts was Jurijs Ronimoiss, the head of Territory development department of Ape. He was able to provide us detailed information about the histories of specific houses, their owners, their location, their conditions and the development of the county of Ape. He was really interested in our field studies and willing to share his experiences and knowledge.

Another expert was Astra Binde. She shared her knowledge about the involvement of second home people in Ape and offered to give us further information about more people that could

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be worthy of consideration. Other key informants were local attached people like bibliographer or shop assistants.

4.2.3 Semi­structured interviews

The approach to use semi­structured interviews was chosen because of its possibilities to have control over the main topics of the interview. The questions are a guideline which should help the researcher to structure his/ her interviews and to make them comparable. Simultaneously it is possible for the interviewees to vary in their answers which helps those questioned to find their own words. This freedom in talking could lead to a flow of words and to a more natural situation of conversation (Bernard 2006, 212).

The strengths of semi­structured interviews consist of the ability to react to unknown emerging issues during the interview, as well as the possibility to add new questions or approaches before or after an interview.

Some experts have also the risk of being used to a proper and defined way of being questioned. As they have a good knowledge of the research topic, the interviewer should give him/ her the feeling of being prepared and not to waste their time (Bernard 2006, 212).

The first steps on the creation of these semi­structured interviews was the collection of secondary data. Therefor we used local maps, articles, tourism information as well as the personal assessments and experiences of our local team members. The next step was the creation of an interview guide which should have been able to distinguish between locals who are permanent living in Ape and those who come there just for vocational or gardening reasons. This subdivision concerning the questioning between locals and second home people can be found in the following table:

Semi­structured questions for local people: Semi­structured questions for SHP:

1. Do you have any roots in Ape? 1. Do you have any roots here in Ape? 2. Do you work here? 2. How often and how long are you 3. Why have you decided to live here? staying here? 4. Would you say that Ape is a remote 3. Why have you decided to stay place? here?

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5. Do you know any secondary home 4. Would you say that Ape is a remote people? place? 6. What do you think about SHP? 5. Have you bought a real estate here? 7. Are you in any contacts with them? 6. (If yes:) Why did you do that? 8. What are the benefits or disadvantages 7. What are your leisure time of shp? activities/ main activities here? 9. Are there any conflicts between locals 8. Are you using any kind of services and shp? for your second home? 10. (In which farmstead do you live in?) 9. Are you involved in the community 11. Do you know where are locals/ shp anyhow? situated? 10. Are you interested in the politics 12. What do you think about the future of and the decisions of the Ape? municipality (economics, social, 13. Do you have any future opinion about culture, sport life)? the future development of shp in Ape 11. How are you seeing the future of the municipality regarding SHP?

The main focus of these semi­structured interviews was to find out more about the attitude of locals towards second home people, their feeling of being attached to Ape as well as their involvement within the local community.

The next step towards the gathering of data in this field study was to carry our theoretical questions into practical field work. Our first interviews were held close to the famous annually spring market in the town of Ape which is one of the biggest events in this region. We considered the market to be a good place to meet locals as well as second home people, as it is a special market to buy flowers and gardening tools.

Our attempt to find second home people in this neutral place can be linked to the three­part definition of community building by Ray Oldenburg (1989/ 1991). He divides between the “first place” which describes the social environment of the people’s homes and the workspace, defined as “second place”. Our first case study area, the market, represents the “third place” which could be seen as a neutral place where people meet and interact beyond the influences of their homes or workspaces. In the end we covered all of the three places by

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interviewing in front of the school of Ape (third place) as well as employees in their local shop (second place) and people in front of their house (first place).

4.2.4 Observation, photo fixation and field notes

This paragraph deals with side techniques like observation, photo fixation and field notes. Through observations we were able to add information to our interview data. These are gathered through different visual methods which should picture the way the observed people live in the everyday life. This process is described as an immersion of yourself into a new culture or a new surrounding (Bernard 2006, 343­344). These observations took mainly place in the town of Ape but also in the surrounding area where parts of the research group were repeatedly walking around to get an impression of the place or to find questionable people. The impressions were kept by using photo fixation to have a reference for the analysis later on. Not only houses were photographed but also their surroundings, conditions as well as the interaction between interviewers and interviewees. These perspectives should provide a good overview over the material and the immaterial conditions of a place. Another way to gather data out of the field work is to write down field notes. This approach should help the researcher to capture important moments or impressions. It was also helpful as we did not recorded our interviews via recorder.

4.3 Weaknesses and passive problems

This part focuses on the weaknesses of semi­structured interviews. Along Chauncey Wilson (2013) this approach has several weaknesses. It can happen that the interview situation is dominated by influencing side effects like the age, the background history, the sex and other demographic influences. Chauncey Wilson (2013) calls this effect “interviewer effect” which could have an influence of the willingness to reveal information. We experienced this effect while trying to interview a women in the town of Ape. She was not willing to talk about their neighbours although they were not at home. Later it turned out that these two neighbours have a difficult relation to each other, as the absent house owners are young people who inherited this secondary house while being “no locals”. They sometimes give huge garden parties that

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disturb the neighbours. We gathered these information through one of our expert interviews who was well informed about local relations and stories.

4.3.1 Language as a passive problem

This part deals with the difficulties caused by the communication of different languages during our field work. Problems like these were found not only within our group conversations but also within our interviews.

4.3.2 Group and public communication

One of the weaknesses of working in an international research group is mainly the language. On the one hand international researchers need to find a common way of interacting and communicating. They need to be able to discuss complicated circumstances. As our group consisted of many different nationalities, we communicated through English, which was spoken by all group members. Nevertheless is it always more difficult to argue with someone by using a foreign language than using your mother tongue. This could lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations. We tried to avoid misunderstandings by critical enquiries and discussions. Lacks of clarity had been tried to be explained immediately.

On the other hand speaking a foreign language is always difficult concerning the interaction between interviewer and the person being questioned. If the case of a common language is not given, the interaction between the interviewer and the interviewees is nearly impossible. We experienced that problem while trying to interview several people without the help of our Latvian group members. Even younger people hardly spoke English, which made it almost impossible to carry out interviews without the Latvian help. Likewise could the lack of the knowledge of a “lingua franca” lead to uncomfortable situation where both sides, the interviewer as well as the interviewees, have difficulties in expressing their opinion in an appropriate way. This could lead to an unpleasant situation of silence or even the feeling of being ashamed of your own language abilities if the other person has higher abilities in the common used language. We experienced this feeling while our very first interview. The interviewee was just speaking Latvian so that the interview had been held by our two Latvian group members. As the rest of the group was not able to understand the content, we had been

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forced to sit beside the two interacting sides without being able to support the two Latvian members or to ask any further questions. This leads directly to the following part which describes this dependency on native speaking researchers.

4.3.3 Dependency on native speakers

As it was already mentioned in the precedent paragraph, it is difficult to take part in an interview with no chance of interaction or influence caused by language difficulties. But this situation leads to the fact that members of an international research group who don’t speak the national language, are dependent on the statements of the native speaking members. Sometimes the translation of one language into another could lead to misinterpretations or distortions of original statements. Researchers who are dependent on the translation of their native speaking group members, just get a filtered or reduced version of the information offered by the interviewees. This circumstance can be avoided through a very intense interconnection of all group members and precise transcription of the interview into a commonly used language. One way to derive benefits from this challenging language situation was the use of non­Latvian speaking researchers as observers. As three members of the group did not speak Latvian, they passively observed the interaction between the interviewers and the questioned persons while taking notes of the situation, surrounding or atmosphere. As a passive observer it is possible to notice circumstances that interviewer wouldn’t probably notice because of immediate pressure during an interview.

4.3.4 External problems: choice of time

Another main problem was related to the choice of time of our field work. As it would have been difficult to meet second home people during the week, we decided to start our work on Sunday (10.05.2015). It was still difficult to find these people as most of them are leaving their second homes on Sundays to go back to their primary residences. This experience was also confirmed by our interviewees who told us that many of the second house people had already left when we arrived in our research area of Ape. Furthermore we were informed that it is also not the right month to meet the actual amount of SHO in this area. Mai doesn’t seem to be an actual traveling month to go to your secondary home. This movement takes place during the month between the end of July and August when there are vacations. But they could also be found during the beginning of spring when the temperatures are getting warmer.

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5. Results

5.1. Case study area during research

When coming from Tartu to Latvia, towards the Latvian – Estonian border, and entering into the Latvia, we were first confronted with Ape’s historical buildings, which are built from the dolomite generously available in the vicinity of the town.. This perfectly highlights the town’s ability to understand the fact that it can use its own resources in its development. This can be seen both in more than century­old buildings and in even nowadays built publicly and privately owned buildings. Also there are several houses which are in a really bad condition and need to be renovated.

On the one hand we noticed the peaceful atmosphere especially in the town of Ape. There are not many cars driving in the streets. Everyone knows each other and the regions seems to be sleepy. On the other hand Ape seems to be extremely lively but just during special dates like the spring or autumn markets and the annual motocross competition. Everyone is in a fever of this event. We were able to notice this excitement as we arrived in Ape one week before the competition. These events appear to be like a real energy boost for this region.

Although the town is small and compact, surprisingly for us, there are a lot of food and household goods stores, which shows that these stores are visited and there is a demand. We found out that the number of shops can be explained by the Estonian people coming to these shops, because for many people living in the Estonian side of the border, the stores in Ape are the closest ones. In addition, the prices are lower in Latvia and many Estonian also have relatives or friends there, who they can visit at the same time.

Spring and summer are the time for many activities in the town. During weekends, many farmers from Estonia along with local farmers are selling their products in Ape. We could witness this since there was a Crossborder fair in Ape as we arrived. We also noticed that craftsmen, whose products could be of interests to tourists, were almost absent in the town. Mostly there were sellers selling cheap goods manufactured in China, bought mostly by pensioners. Our impression was that the town looks beautiful, probably because of the gardener who has taken care of its greenery, flowers and also of all the landscape design of Ape overall. The landscape is streaked with large forest areas interrupted by areas of arable land. Within the countryside you can find scattered farmhouses which are mostly inhabited.

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Local residents seem to be very active. There were various interest associations and local municipality is actively working to improve the living conditions in the town. There are many associations in Ape whose members live also outside Ape (told by Auth.1, Auth.2): Development and support society of Ape (‘AAA’); Hunters association of Ape, Hunter club ‘Lynx’, Ape Youth club ‘Sledges’, Pensioners' association, Mixed choir of Ape, Women's Vocal Ensemble, Folk dance group ‘Metenis’, Blower orchestra of Ape, Ice hockey club ‘Ape’, motorclub ‘Ape’, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ape. Even some people are not permanently living in Ape are proposing initiatives to participate in the municipality’s planning processes. After talking to people, we realized that they are not always aware of what the municipality is able to do. According to Auth.3, people turn to municipality for help only when something is necessary for their own benefit, but not to share their views on some future projects in the municipality. But there are also good examples, when people care about what is happening in town/parish and aware of the real possibilities.

It seems like people can deal with domestic conflicts very easily and resolve them verbally. To resolve the conflicts, usually associated with management in their property, such as dolomite crushing, or for example hunter’s inability to divide hunting areas or silage smell, people must understand that these businesses are needed to keep the rural areas liveable. For example state forests cover 50% of the total forest area. In the private forests covering the other half of the area, it is difficult to control what is happening. Some landowners are making complaints about wild boars which trench large areas of fields, about elks damaging forestry or eating young pine trees tops, and also about a beaver problem. These problems could be restricted by hunters, who sign hunting contracts with the landowners.

In Ape library we heard an emotional story from the librarian (LAP1), who had noticed a general trend that people are coming to the library just to print out flight tickets to go to Ireland. This tells about the ongoing migration to other countries, mainly because of work. The population is decreasing rapidly, and statistics are not looking good. Over the past 25 years the population of the Ape town/parish has decreased 50%. In addition, although officially there are approximately 1000 people living in the city, one­third of them do actually not live here, said Auth.3. According to Auth.3. several settlements disappeared during the collectivisation. These areas were now afforested.

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In general, the residents are satisfied with their town location. They (e.g. Exp.1, SHP2) like the fact that it is located far from Riga, and that is close to the Estonian border, that provides an opportunity to go to Estonia, which is a bit more developed country. Unfortunately many houses are abandoned or as the owners of some houses have died, the houses are now property of the municipality. There are many occasion when the municipality even doesn’t know who is the actual owner or they can’t contacted him. Municipality has not enough resources to take care of the abandoned.

Another very interesting fact was noticed when we were talking about the size of the town of Ape. With its approximately 980 inhabitants it is officially defined as a small local town from a Latvian perspective. For foreign member of the group this scale didn’t match with their native definitions of “a town”. It was very interesting to speak about these different opinions with local people and our Latvian group members.

The biggest wealth of Ape is its beautiful nature. One of the most important symbols of Ape is the river Vaidava. It largely determines people's desire to live here, and choose this place as their ‘Second Home’ to relax from the city bustle.

5.2. General description of second home people in Ape

The town and parish of Ape (further – Ape) certainly is not a typical area serving as a second home, maybe that is the reason why the municipality haven’t collected any data regarding second home owners. As our gatekeeper (Auth. 1) and project manager of the municipality (Auth. 2) told us, they ‘would like to know how to get the number of SHP’, but ‘no one can know that’. As the head of the Territory development department (Auth.3) told us, ‘we’ve been talking about implementing these things [about promoting more newcomers get a SH here and involving them into the community] in the new regional planning documents of Vidzeme region’. But according to him, Ape is still too far from Rīga and also from Valmiera, the regional development centre. The place has a potential if ‘you can wake up in the morning, see the sunshine and decide to go to the summer home for relaxing to get back in the evening’. Although people (E.g., SHP1, SHP3, Exp.1) stress out its beautiful nature, it really depends on the exact place. For example, an elderly woman (Loc.2) thinks that the parish is not the best

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place to have a [typical] SH, because ‘its lacks any beautiful lake’ (although there are a few of ​ them, although in unpopulated area). She lives next to a cattle farm ‘producing’ specific scent ​ that ruins the rural idyll.

When anyone (local residents and authorities) is asked whether there are second homes in Ape, at first moment an interviewee by that understand ‘someone from Rīga, who have bought a summer house here’. In this case there is almost none typical second home in Ape. So it depends on our focus, as researchers, what we understand by that. That’s why we asked about all the different kinds of ‘second home people’ (SHP) as we later described them, because an important share of SHP is not owners of their second home. Local authorities (Auth.1, Auth.2) then mentioned that there’s a plenty of [former] locals who are regularly visiting their parents, relatives and/or friends here. They are both involved in local community and feeling place­attached here, visiting Ape, to ‘regain their strength/energy in the meadows, forests and culture of Ape’ (Auth.1). But the use of quite wide definition sometimes makes it hard to recognize, whether someone is or isn’t a SHP, the local or just a visitor.

By using different methods, mentioned before, we were able to collect more and more different profiles of different types of SHP of Ape (see Table 4.1.).

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Table 4.1.

Groups of inhabitancy of their Inter Roo Cases Comments different SHP SH v. ts

'no one can permanent/ uncountab 1 former locals 5 Y know that' 'there should be at ​ temporary le (Auth.1) least a third of official population 2 locals now ​ not living in Ape' long­term permanent/ uncountab ­ Y (Auth.3) working/studying temporary le abroad 3 visitors of their ​ uncountab 'every person in Ape has relatives (haven't permanent 1 Y le somebody visiting them' (Loc.2) been locals) 4 those who had lack of a certain SH/ ​ uncountab their relatives here temporary/permanen 2 Y le (haven't been locals) t 5 former WWII ​ unliveable/ lack of a refugees who had 2 ­ Y certain SH their roots in Ape 6 locals who have a ​ SH because of temporary ­ N family bonding 7 locals from the >16 ​ town who have temporary 1 Y bought a SH in the parish 8 those who have no 'There is no such kind [of SHP] ​ roots here, but own a temporary ≥3 1 N in Ape' (Auth.2) 'We're not SH Piebalga' (Auth.3) 9 hunters who have ‘They got their hunting territories ​ purposely bought the temporary 2­3 ­ N during Soviet times, still attached property to the forests’ (Auth.3)

According to data gathered by us and classifying SHP into groups divided by the reason why they have a SH, how are they related to Ape and how often they visit their SH, there are 9 groups of SHP, also having a different degree of their place­attachment and involvement in

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the local community, although there are sometimes important differences in terms of our research focus. It’s important to understand that almost each single case we heard of is kind of ‘unique’, even SHP from the similar cases from the same group can involve in the local community and feel the attached to the place completely differently. If we are talking about general description of the all the SHP in Ape, that we can point out that almost everyone has ​ family roots. If we compare the ethnical composition of SHP we can see that Ape is very ​ Latvian SHP place, in comparison to typical seaside resorts or colony garden areas. We found out that there could probably be one case, where the owners of a SH was Russian. Of course, there are many SHP having Estonian roots (as. SHP1) but they are already deeply assimilated and can be regarded as Latvians. There importantly more people at weekends (‘they come already Fridays, in the evening) and during summer/other holiday. The main events they are really visiting, described as ‘mandatory’ by (SHP7) is the motocross race ‘Vaidava Cup’ and the Cemetery festival. They are differently spatially distributed, but in general if we talk just about temporary inhabited buildings that we counted 29 such building in the parish (see Fig. 4.2.1), and around 12 in the town (we couldn’t cover all the town), many of those are located on Pasta iela (street; see Fig. 4.2.2).

Fig, 4.2.1. The spatial distribution of the temporary inhabited and abandoned farmsteads in Ape ​ parish (made by the authors)

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Fig. 4.2.2. The inhabitancy/use of houses in Pasta iela, the historical central street of Ape (made by the ​ authors)

Group 1, former locals, probably is the largest one, although it’s impossible to count them, ​ ​ because of the differences between being registered here, about visiting period and frequency, about self­labelling. Is it possible to refer to them as SHP, if they are calling themselves ‘locals’ (apenietis)? Some of those people (SHP1, SHP2) wouldn’t be happy about being ​ ​ labelled as SHP. ‘I work and sleep in Rīga, but I’m still a guy from Ape’, says SHP1. Meanwhile SHP2 reproaches his friends who calls Ape as the ‘country’. ‘If you go to Ape, you don’t go to the country, you go home! That’s what I’m always trying to say to my friends’. It’s hard to say whether they’ve left Ape just for a while or permanently. If the activist of the NGO ‘Youth club of Ape ‘Sledges’’ (Auth.3) says that a half of their official members doesn’t live in Ape anymore, that probably means that the number of the Group 1 is going to increase. The members of this group are likely to have their own residence, which usually serves as a permanent residence for their relatives (e.g., SHP2, SHP3) or their relatives have passed away. As Auth.1., Auth.2, Exp.1, Exp.2 told that is important that there are very distinctive two parts constituting this group. We could also divide this group into the active part (those who are organizing, participating events) and the passive part (comes to Ape to see their relatives, friends, to relax and party here). Describing the spatial distribution of their SH, this group is mainly represented in the town.

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Group 2, locals now long­term working/studying abroad, also constitutes an important ​ ​ share of SHP. It seems that the biggest part of them has still registered here, because the local authorities (Auth.1,3) agree that the actual number is at least a third less. It’s almost impossible to count them, although Auth.3. said, she’d had a list in front of here of all the official residents, she we would easily describe the actual residence of almost every person. Although we didn’t have an opportunity to interview them, the narratives we heard also makes them quite inactive part of SHP at least now, since they have left Latvia.

The biggest problem, regarding group 3, visitors of their relatives (haven't been locals), is ​ ​ to understand how are they feeling actually, that also makes any estimation impossible. There is some SHP, e.g. SHP8, who are very active and really consider themselves as part of Ape. They’re probably going to become permanent residents. Still they are very dependent on their relatives, who are the actual residents of Ape. As the head of the development department (Auth.3) pointed there are many cases when the situation regarding their relatives health could be decisive to turn the members of this group into Group 4 or even permanent residents. The older the permanent resident is, the more visitors can he/she usually await. During the summer ‘there’s a [front] yard, full of children’, says (Loc.3).

Those had their relatives here also could be divided in a two subgroups – 1) those who still ​ owns a property, a SH house (e.g. SHP4) and are more dependent on themselves, can manage their life as a SH owner easily and visit Ape whenever they wish; and 2) those who has no property in Ape (as e.g. SHP9, SHP10), that’s why they visit Ape quite rarely. They’re dependent on other people who could provide them accommodation. For the latter subgroup we have to define the second home concept in a broader (mental) sense. ​ ​

Although it’s the tiniest group of SHP definitely is Group 5, former WWII refugees who ​ had their roots in Ape and there are only two cases of such people in Ape (an elderly American Latvian lady and an elderly Australian Latvian couple), from the narratives we heard about those people (e.g. Auth.2, Exp.1, LAP1, Loc.8) it’s easy to evaluate their importance in the local community. In one occasion they have actual residence here; ‘home’ is used a broader sense.

The next two groups (Groups 6&7), locals who have a SH because of family bonding and ​ ​ had purposely a summer house, was the last ones whose existence we accidentally found ​

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out, because they’re not used to consider themselves as SHP because they’re already locals. We gathered information on 16 cases, mainly from Auth.3, while he helped us to map temporary inhabited houses. In those cases it’s very hard to separate their involvement and place­attachment as a SHP and a local.

Only the Group 8, lacking any roots here, but owning a SH, could be regarded as a typical ​ ​ SHP in context of Latvia. There were just a few of them. The main reason, mentioned by Auth.3, is the distance from the major regional centres and Rīga. ‘This is not Piebalga’, he told us, those who are willing to buy a SH here is somehow ‘crazy or extreme’, looking for experiences. That’s why proposed implementation of Estonian ‘Back to the countryside’ by Auth.1 is not very welcomed by her boss. She would like to make a database with empty houses to offer them to potential SHP. Probably, someone has bought/could buy a property here because it’s cheaper because of the distance of Rīga. ‘The more money someone has saved, the more money and time he could invest in his SH,’ thinks Auth.3.

A specific occasion of SHP is Group 9, hunters who have purposely bought the property ​ who are non­locals, usually from Rīga. As Auth.2 told us, during Soviet times there were specially designated areas for hunters from Rīga, working in large factories. Probably because of their attachment to those forests, they have purposely bought hunting residences next to those. Auth.2 gave us info on two, but we probably found another possible hunters’ SH ourselves by land­surveying.

5.3. SHP involvement in the local community

The involvement of different groups of the SHP in the local community is very important. There’s different ways how actively they are or aren’t involving the community. Auth.3 considers that the municipality does to less to involve SHP, especially those who are not so active themselves. He refers to them as being ‘invisible for municipality’, although ‘we should do more to make them come to Ape more often and to turn them into permanent residents’. Meanwhile his dependants (Auth.1, 2) disagrees a bit because it’s even hard to involve locals to many activities. ‘Sometimes I’m calling many people I know personally to say that an event is going to great,’ says (Auth.2), otherwise there will be a few of interestents.

If you ask any of local authority and experts about the SHP involvement in the community, the first name they mention probably will be Mairis Levans (SHP1), a local celebrity, a ​ ​ ​ ​

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former national motocross champion and the organizer of many sport events here (representing Group 1). ‘He is unique for us,’ such or similar phrases are being told about him not only by the local NGO leader (Exp.2). Mairis, born and raised in Ape, lives in Rīga for more than 20 years, but is still considers Ape as his actual home. He’s involved in the community various ways (see Fig. 4.3.1.) but the most important is organizing definitely the most important event for Ape – traditional ‘Vaidava Cup’ (Vaidavas kauss) motocross race, held in a motocross track situated next to the town.

‘If anyone knows Ape because of something, that should be motocross,’ thinks Exp.1, so in this way Mairis, overtaking the organizing of the race from his father, has kept and raised the glory of Ape. She also mentions the weekend of the race is the definitely the most important for whole Ape – as the number of people in Ape increases at least three times, it’s the most important day in a year for local entrepreneurs – the shops and the lone pub fill their storage as full as possible, the motocross racers use local repair masters, ladies make a new haircut to show off.

He says by himself (SHP1) that not only the race itself is important, but also promoting the name of Ape (the day we left Ape, he was talking about the race on the national radio programme). Asked about different kind of involvement, he says that he would like to do more, but he spends all his ‘leisure time’ organizing the motocross race and the stage of nationwide MTB marathon. Mairis says that by organizing those events one of his aim is to local community to provide jobs to locals (especially youngsters). Of course, there’re also

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conflicts because of the race.

Fig. 4.31. The various ways (yellow box – social; purple – cultural/sport; blue – economical; red – ​ conflicts) of Mairis Levans’s involvement in the local community (made by the authors, data from SHP1, Auth.1,2, Exp.1, Loc.10)

Although Mairis told (SHP1) that now locals are more understanding, a local living next to the track (Loc.10) says that’s impossible to live at his house during the race because of the noise and dusts blown right to his house. Also he dislikes the race because the closest road the town is blocked, because the track crosses it. The authorities (Auth.1,2) also agrees that there are some people living next to the track and complaining about that. They are also the reason why the track cannot be used the whole season properly, because they wouldn’t like to go a bit more. ‘These people... They just don’t understand how important is the race for all the town and municipality’, says Auth.2.

Sport/cultural involvement

Ape is specific occasion when its sport (especially motorsport) life totally dominates over the town. We observed many locals deeply connected with different kind of motorsport, besides motocross also mud­racing is very popular.

Of course, Mairis is not the only one who organizes the sports life of Ape. He is the chair of local motoclub ‘Ape’, where around 80% of members are not locals anymore, many of them could be regarded as SHP. Many SHP, as SHP2, help Mairis in organizing the ‘Vaidava Cup’,

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but SHP7 is the main organizer of the MTB Marathon. SHP2 is also organizing the car rally ‘Sarma’, which partly takes place in Ape. All the events are very important for family and friends gathering.

All the SHP mentioned before represented Group 1, however, there are SHP from others groups as much active. SHP8, a grandson of locals, also is involved in local sport scene – although just visiting his grandmother here, he used to organize a BMX race, also competes for the local ice­hockey club ‘Ape’, at the interview stressing out that this also the way to represent the place, he’s place­attached. He is not the only one SHP, representing Ape in different sports, as well as basketball, volleyball and beach­volleyball. However, Mairis thinks that there should more people having written ‘Ape’ next to their name during any competition, ‘because everyone is from Rīga now’. He always reminds this to his fellows.

There is also an influence of the municipality by developing sports through building courts by trans­border Latvian­Estonian projects. It is also one of the ways how to involve SHP. ‘If some time ago they were just relaxing or partying here, now they’re eager to play basketball or any other sport,’ says Auth.2. Also being an activist at the youth club, of which the half is actually living outside Ape, she tells that they’re organizing sport and parties events to keep former locals place attachment.

The most popular form how almost every SHP, even those who visit Ape once or twice a year is involved in the community is by attending local events, both sport and cultural. They don’t attend only concerts (as SHP8) and parties organized by the youth club, but the most important cultural and traditional event is the Cemetery Festival (actually two of them in two different cemeteries). It’s the time when all the relatives of the people buried in Ape gathers and spends their time here. It’s important to all the Groups 1 – 5. Also it used be that time once a year when people working abroad returns, says Exp.1.

They’re also other ways how to interact culturally with locals. SHP6, representing group 8, are regular visitors of the library, taking always a pile of magazines to their SH, they live half a year. The librarian (LAP1) says, that during summer there more and more children coming with their grandparents, to get books for summer reading.

The very specific occasion is an elderly Australian Latvian couple who have roots in Ape. Now they come once a year and stay no longer than a week, attending the cultural events and

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also inviting kind of local ‘elite’ to their dinner, tells the LAP2, who is the chair of local NGO, which members are this couple. They always donate money to support something specific the NGO asks them. For example, they donated money for a purchase of piano for the school.

Political involvement of SHP

‘In general, locals are not very politically active,’ says Auth.3. ‘They come only if they want something from the municipality or to complain for something/somebody. Even if they come to the public decision meetings they usually don’t understand what it that certain topic and they are just worried for such things as their gardens.’ Probably that also explains the lack of political interest among the SHP but one (SHP8) who is mentioned by Auth.1 and Auth.3. He is described as being ‘hyper­active’ by Auth.3. The main planner of the municipality tells that he use this term for those who are involving too much and for any kind of non­essential things, for example he mentions that SHP8 wants to make more strict regulations for buildings in the historical centre of Ape.

SHP8, asked his opinion, says that he wouldn’t call this thing as argue. He is very involved in a decision making because he’s going to become a permanent resident of Ape, but meanwhile he wants to protect the historical centre from being crippled because of ignorance of regulations and cultural heritage. ‘The new owners pay no attention to the visual and historical look of the house [in the historical centre], the house are turned into ‘glued –together shacks’. They are putting inappropriate windows disrespecting the regulations and doing similar things. If the municipality wants to protect the cultural heritage that is characteristic only to Ape, and also that tourists appreciate the centre and its buildings that it should take care for its appearance making the owners to take care of their house properly. I would like to repair my house the same way as it were once.’

In general, our gatekeeper (Auth.1) explains this lack of interest because of the reasons of SHP visits – ‘they just want to relax from Rīga and do nothing’.

Economical and social involvement

The probably the biggest involvement in the local economy comes from those huge sport events mentioned before. ‘The motocross race is very important for the town and

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municipality’ says Exp.1, but this could be said by almost anyone. It’s the time when the economy of Ape blooms, and actually directly/indirectly because of the involvement of SHP.

But there are many other ways how SHP are involved more regularly. Those who belong to Group 1 and Group 2 used to been registered here (Auth.1; e.g. SHP1, SHP2), that they’re paying their income taxes here. Also the official number of residents is important in situations when the municipality of Ape is being evaluated anyhow. Nevertheless no one from our interviewees said that they’re registered here in order to support the municipality of Ape, they are doing that. If they own a property they pay the real estate tax.

During their visits all the SHP uses local shops and services, supporting local entrepreneurs. There are also those who do it purposely (as SHP2, SHP8). According to SHP2, he does it by buying goods at local small­size food producers/farmers. He buys, for example, meat and brings that to Rīga, also providing his colleagues by that and they really appreciate the quality of those goods. Sometimes these economical relationships takes place from both sides and be as beneficial for the locals, as well as the SHP. SHP8, although not being a local, is communicating with and supporting his neighbours and other locals different ways. ‘I have good relationship with my neighbours. If there’s a necessity, we help each other. We gave a part of our garden in hands of our neighbour, because we don’t need all garden. She gives the plants of tomatoes and other vegetables. When she had cows, we were provided with milk, cottage cheese and cheese for free. [..]We also buy local products, for example, we buy milk, cheese, lamb meat’. His family also provides locals with seasonal jobs, as gardening, piling and cleaving firewood and chopping grass. ‘When I built the greenhouse and a woodshed, I also bought the timber from locals. I want to help locals as much as I can. I also repair my car at my childhood friend, because I know that I can trust him.’

Also those SHP who aren’t locals are involving social­economically way. The elderly couple from Rīga (SHP6), who spend all the summer from May till October in their summer house next to the River Vaidava, which was purposely bought by their son, also is actively economically interacting with their neighbours. When they ‘had more strength’ they helped their neighbours in a honey production. Now they can help the neighbours who lack a car by giving them a lift to Ape or Alūksne, meanwhile receiving a goods as honey and milk and having their house guarded during their wintertime. Similar interaction happens in another case: a local (Loc.5) living right next door to SHP, who are still going to live abroad for 15

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years is managing their property (by chopping grass, keeping the eye one the neighbours house) and using the water pipe implemented by the SHP, who have invested quite a lot money into their property.

As Auth.3 says, there are many occasions when neighbours are guarding the SHP property and receiving some money for that. Another way how to help ‘in a way’ is give their land in a rent to local farmers (as SHP4) or offering hiring their property (as that American Latvian mentioned before has done; SHP6 also is willing to that but still can’t find anyone interested. Auth. 3 considers the land renting contradictory – on the one hand it’s away how to keep the land managed and used as agricultural land, on the hand it decreases the visiting frequency of the property.

The hunters from outside (Group 9) is also involved in the social economical life. They’re making contracts with local landowners while local farmers can be protected from the wild animals, who are ruining their gardens and forests, said Auth. 3.

As we have found out it those social­economical interactions is usually beneficial for all the involved – SHP, locals and the municipality.

Conflicts involving SHP

We can’t talk about some real conflicts regarding the SHP and locals/municipality, but there are some small issues, excluding the one regarding the motocross race and the one between the municipality and SHP8. For examples, SHP6 used to stay at their SH during winter but as the municipality wasn’t going to clean the snow because there’s no roads governed by the municipality. They went to the administration several times but the municipality was about to clean the road only by paying 20 lats (~30 EUR) per a km, which could be a pretty high amount of money, said SHP6. That’s also one of the reasons why they stopped to live permanently there.

An intriguing and kind of a ‘secret’ conflict is happening between two neighbours in the town. The SH owners, distant relatives of previous owner, from Rīga, regarded as ‘outsiders’, inherited the property and immediately started to rebuilt the old house, improve their garden and built a new fence, as we were told by Auth. 3. The neighbour (Loc. 1) didn’t want to talk too much with us but said that ‘they’re acting as ‘cocks’. They’re from Rīga and think that they can do whatever they want’. We got some clues from Exp.1, that these SHP are quite

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wealthy and are making some garden parties that may disturb Loc.1. Meanwhile Auth.3 guessed that some conflict could happen because of the changing of the importance of the land borders because the times was changing. Probably, the SHP used to access their property through Loc.1’s land.

No one knows exactly but Auth.3 guessed that there could be some conflicts between hunters and the SHP, owning the land. Although their property is damaged by wild animals, they still could have been having ‘NIMBY’ phenomena – ‘you can hunt animals wherever you want but on my land’.

Exp.1 guessed that potential problem and the thing that doesn’t support any outsider to become a SHP in Ape is so called ‘small­town syndrome’, where everybody knows each other and is distributing rumours about everyone.

5.4. Place­attachment of SHP

‘Ape is a place somehow connected with magic and I can really feel that’, says Mairis Levans (SHP1). He guesses that could be linked with ‘Paganamaa’ settlement in Estonia which name means ‘a land of witches’. Also the sandstone cliff next the secondary school of Ape bears the name of ‘witches’. Although the most of the SHP have stronger or weaker family roots in Ape, they’re placed­attached in different ways. The notion of the former locals usually (SHP1, SHP2) is that Ape is still their home although they are spending just a small bit of their time in Ape. They’re expressing their place­attachment by promoting the name of Ape and organizing important events for whole town and the municipality.

Those belonging to Group 3 (as SHP7) and Group 4 (as SHP9) who have spend just their best time (holidays, weekends) in Ape is deeply attached to the place through their childhood memories. As SHP9 told us, ’This is a very special place for me. It’s the paradise, where I can return to the paths of my childhood’. Nevertheless her relatives, buried in the cemetery, she has no physical bond that links her with Ape, but SHP7 has an opposite – he is also physically attached to Ape by the house. He told that ‘I have a spiritual bond with Ape. I feel like I’ve been pulled by the greenery, what the city lacks. We spend much of our childhood in the forests and meadows of Ape. We were playing games, digging ‘bunkers’ and making a tree hut, riding motorbikes. This house was my grandfather’s will, so I having responsibility of it’.

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Those who flew Latvia during the WW2 (Group 5) and visit Ape usually just once a year still have their emotional bond to this vicinity. They left Ape as a children and don’t remember almost anything (Exp.2), but they are somehow very attached to this place.

Probably, those have no roots in Ape is more attracted to the physical characteristics of Ape. For hunters that could be the forests with all the ‘natural treasures’ inside, that made them to a buy a special house there. As we found out from SHP6, whose son bought the house purposely to have a SH for his parents and later for himself, he was seeking a summer house for two years and when he finally found the place right next to the river Vaidava and he immediately understood that is ‘his place’. The son of SHP6 bought the just by accident because he was just a second in a row, but the first ones were involved in a car crash that why they declined the deal. There is very beautiful and wild landscape we enjoyed ourselves, and we can agree that this place is very attaching. Meanwhile this place has already acquired also emotional place­attachment for the owner, who met his wife there for the first time.

6. Conclusions ​ The remoteness of Ape from Riga seems to be an obstacle rather than an advantage for the ​ settling in of new second home people from outside. This contradicts the theory that the remoteness of a territory is a positive point for the settling in of new second home people (Urbain 2002). Ape can considered to be an untypical second house area, since it lacks the purpose­built second houses and special nature characteristics to attract the second house people.

According to the interviews and our research, several factors may explain this lack of interest: ­too long distance from Riga which does not allow to commute in one day ­a lack of communication of the local authorities to promote the territory ­a landscape and amenities that do not respond to any future owners expectations

In the case of the parish of Ape, roots and nature seem to be the main reasons to use a second house in the area. Second home people are mostly former locals who have kept ties with Ape. Some are engaging fully in local life especially in sports and cultural events while others do

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not get involved or only involve little. This second category can be described as "Homesick locals" according to the Huijben’s theory (2012).

One of the challenges for the municipality is to involve this second category of people. The culture and sports events can be a step towards integration into the local community. In the case of Ape, motorsports are very important and play an important role in encouraging the youth to get involved in local life.

Second Home people who do not originate in Ape are also involved in the community. There seems to exist a system of mutual aid between neighbours (exchanges of services , food etc). There are also some especially active people who the municipality can rely on to get others involved in projects. These second home people are a paramount to Ape. In an area affected by the rural exodus, they can maintain an active local life.

We consider our research important because it adds to the insufficient information about second house people in the area. Although compared to its size, Ape is a relatively active city, there seems to be even more potential for the municipality to benefit from the second houses in the area.

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7. References

Aronsson, L. 2004. Place Attachment of Vacation Residents: Between Tourists and Permanent Residents. In Aspects of Tourism, 15: Tourism, mobility and second ​ ​ ​ homes: Between elite landscape and common ground. Edited by C.M Hall & D.K ​ Muller. Clevedon: Channel View Publications. Apes novads 2014. Par novadu. http://www.apesnovads.lv/apes­novads/par­novadu/ (Last ​ ​ visit 13.05.2015). Bernard, H.R. 2006: Research methods in Anthropology. Qualitative and quantitative approaches, (4): 212, 343­344. Besser, Terry L. 2009. Changes in small town social capital and civic engagement. Journal of Rural Studies. 25:2. 185­193. Clifford, N., French, S., Valentine, G. 2010: Key Methods in Geography. Sage Publications, ​ ​ London. Duden, 2013: http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Genius_Loci (Last visit 13.05.2015). EMÜ & LLU 2010. Igauņu­latviešu kopprojekts „BUY LOCAL” saskaņā ar pētījumu par Ape­Setu reģiona dabas un cilvēku resursiem. Tartu, Jelgava. Farstad, M. & Rye, J.F. 2013. Second home owners, locals and their perspectives on rural development. Journal of Rural Studies. 2013:30. 41­51. Gallent, N. 2014. The Social Value of Second Homes in Rural Communities. Housing, Theory and Society, 31:2, 174­191. Hall, C.M., & Müller, D. K. 2004. Second homes: curse or blessing?. Halfacree, K. 2012. Heterolocal Identities? Counter Urbanisation, Second Homes, and - Rural Consumption in the Era of Mobilities. Population, Space and Place 2012:18. 209­224. Huijbens, E,H. 2012. Sustaining a Village’s Social Fabric? Sociologia Ruralis 52:3. 332­352. Kikos 2010. Apes pagasts LocMap. http://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Att%C4%93ls:Apes _pagasts_LocMap.png (Last visit 14.05.2015). Kule, L. 2010. Urban­rural Interactions in Latvia. Regional Insights, 1(1), 12­14 Lipkina, O., & Hall, C. M. (2013). 11 Russian second home owners in Eastern Finland. Contested spatialities, lifestyle migration and residential tourism, 158. ​ Macbeth, J., D. Carson and J.K. Northcote 2004. Social capital, tourism and regional development: SPCC as a basis for innovation and sustainability. Current Issues in Tourism, 7 (6): 502­522. Müller, D. K. 2007. Second homes in the Nordic countries: Between common heritage and exclusive commodity. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 7(3), 193­201 Oldenburg, R. 1989: The great good place. Cafés, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Quoted in the NordPlus (2015) presentation “Theories of place making and local development planning” by Thorbjörg Kr. Kjartansdóttir (06.05.2015). Oliveira, J., Roca, Z. & Leitão, Z. 2010. Territorial identity and development: From topophilia to terraphilia. Land Use Policy 2010:27, 801­814. Pitkänen, K., Adamiak, C. and Halseth, G. 2014. Leisure Activities and Rural Community Change: Valuation and Use of Rural Space among Permanent Residents and Second Home Owners. Sosiologia Ruralis 54:2. 143­166. Rinne, J., Paloniemi, R., Tuulentie, S., & Kietäväinen, A. (2015). Participation of second­ home users in local planning and decision­making–a study of three cottage­rich locations in Finland. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, ​ 7(1), 98­114. ​ 37

Roca, M (2013): Place attachment among second home owners: The case of the Oeste Region, Portugal. In Second home tourism in Europe: Lifestyle issues and policy ​ responses. Edited by ​ Zoran Roca. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Scannell, L. & Gifford, R. 2010. Defining place attachment: A tripartite organizing ​ framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology 30:1. 1­10. ​ Urbain, J. D. (2002). Le résident secondaire, un touriste à part?. Ethnologie française, 32(3), ​ ​ ​ ​ 515­520. Wilson, C. 2013: Interview techniques for UX practitioners. A user­centered design method. Chapter 2. http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com/book/software­engineering­and­ development/user­interface/9780124103931/chapter­2dot­semi­structured­ interviews/st0020_chp002_html?uicode=erlangen (Last visit 13.05.2015).

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8. Appendix 8.1. Appendix A: Interviews REF – a reference in the report; SHP –second home people/person; Auth. – an official authority of the municipality council; Loc. – a local; LAP – a local attached person; ­ Time of REF Sex/Age General description Description as (a) SHP interview A former motocross racer; the main organizer of the A former local who comes to Vaidava MX Cup and other Ape from Rīga to visit his 13.00 SHP1 M/48 sport events mother and organize events 10.05 A former local who comes to A motocross racer; the Ape from Rīga to visit his co­organizer of the Vaidava grandmother/friends and 13.45 SHP2 M/ca 30 Cup and other sport events organize events 10.05 M&F/ca A couple from Alūksne with A former locals who spend 14.10 SHP3 35 children their leisure time in Ape 10.05 Assistant of the head of the Department of territory Auth. development; the leader of F 1 ­ the local youth NGO Informant; the gatekeeper 10.­13.05 i Project manager of the e Auth. municipality; a local activist l 2 ­ of NGO Informant 10.­13.05 d 15.30. i Loc.1 F/ca 40 Living next door the SHP Informant 10.05 n t A mother and a daughter, e F/ca 45 living in a farmstead next to r Loc.2 & 15 SHP4 Informant v The owner of the farmstead, i A pensioner from Smiltene; previously resided by mother; 18.30 e SHP4 M/ca 65 managing the farmstead a former local 10.05 w A pensioner; living in a s farmstead with her daughter 18.50 Loc.3 F/ca 75. and son­in­law Informant 10.05 M&F/ca A couple living together 19.30 Loc.4 50 with Loc. 2 Informant 10.05 A pensioner living the next door the SHP and managing 19.50 Loc.5 F/ca 70 their property Informant 10.05 A youngster working in his 21.00 Loc.6 M/ca 18 parents' farm Informant 10.05 Organizer of the tourism in Ape (municipality); a local activist, contributor to local 10.00 Exp.1 ­ newspapers Informant 11.05

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11.40 LAP1 ­ A librarian Informant 11.05 12.20 Loc.7 F/ca 20 A youngster Informant 11.05 12.35 LAP2 ­ A shop­assistant Informant 11.05 Head of the Department of territory development; Auth. worked in local Land 3 ­ committee in 1990s Informant 11.­12.05 A local from Ape who just The new owner of previously have bought a property in abandoned house; bought it 15.15 SHP5 F/ca 35 the parish purposely to have a SH 12.05 A local entrepreneur; a hunter; involved in the 21.00 Loc.8 M/ca 60 municipality Informant 12.05 During summer live in a farmstead, purposely bought by their son as a SH; were permanent residents of the 12.00 SHP6 M&F/78 An elderly couple from Rīga farmstead 13.05 A farmer, living not for from 13.15 Loc.9 M/ca 40 a SH Informant 13.05 A pensioner, working is his Loc.1 yard, lives next to the 14.00 0 M/ca 55 motorbike race track Informant 13.05 The leader of a local NGO; a 16.30 Exp.2 F/ca 40 teacher Informant 13.05 I via n A cyclist; the organizer of A former local, stays at his Facebook t SHP7 M/ca 35 the MTB Marathon in Ape parents, at their house /e­mail e Visits Ape to support his r grandmother and work in via v A grandson of a local; lives garden; as a child spent his phone/e­ i SHP8 M/28 in Riga; higher education summers in Ape mail e w Visits Ape to see her friends, s the go the cemetery; as a child v SHP9 F/ca 45 An architect spent her summers in Ape via phone i SHP1 Visits Ape to relax at nature; via a 0 M/ca 25 A student has ancestors from Ape Facebook c a ll i n g A pensioner; has a grandson / who spends his I Loc.1 weekend/holidays at her n 1 F/ca 65 house Informant via phone 40

t e r n e t

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8.2 Appendix: Photos

No.1: Main street of Ape town

No.2: field research

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