A millionaire’s vision brought to life: Discover the ‘City of the Sun’ built within 3,000 hectares of Latvian forest. 🌞🏙️ Witness the stunning blend of nature and innovation in this remarkable story. Would you also like to live there? Answer the question after seeing the photos in the comments.
A Latvian millionaire has implemented a fantastic project in the vicinity of Cesis. Having bought 3,000 hectares of forest in a hilly area, he built the “City of the Sun”, where special rules apply and people lead a completely different routine of life.
According to the terms of the project, all houses, and there are 300 of them on the territory, are built from environmentally friendly materials. Each house is assigned a plot of 0.4 to 1.3 hectares, on which there is a small lake and forest.
All houses in Amatciems are equipped with a central sewerage system laid by special equipment under the roots of pine and spruce trees, high-speed Internet and electricity.
Houses are heated mainly by heat from the earth – each house has a geothermal heat pump with a 90-100 m well, which converts the earth’s energy into heat energy. This heat energy is enough to heat the house and hot water all year round. And only on cold winter days do residents resort to lighting the fireplace, which is equipped in every house.
From the windows of each individual house (with rare exceptions) no other houses are visible. This became possible due to the hilly terrain and proper planning.
Fences are prohibited in the forest city. This is an ecologically clean area with all the ensuing consequences – roe deer and other animals roam freely around the city, and nothing should interfere with their movement.
For the same reason, it is prohibited in the town to keep dogs on a chain, which by barking can frighten wild but harmless animals – dogs, according to the conditions of the town, can only be kept in houses.
The idea to build such a village came to me when I realized that I wanted to live in my own comfortable house near the water, located in a picturesque place in the forest.
As a result, I created Amatciems, where my family lives today – me and my children and grandchildren, my friends and like-minded people – people with similar views on life, requirements for place of residence and the environment.
I admit that at first I created the project for purely selfish reasons – I wanted to create a comfortable “habitat” for my loved one.
Based on and following the example of similar villages in other countries and on the basis of my personal vision of how, living in a comfortable place, you can be in harmony with your neighbors and nature, and not disturb the life of wild animals, the internal rules of the village were developed. These rules are created for people who share my vision, people who do not consider these rules to be prohibitive.
People who are ready to treat others with respect – be it maintaining silence or maintaining the surrounding area.
The rules, for example, stipulate that within the village in the evening and at night it is not allowed to make noise, it is not allowed to build fences, and they also draw attention to the fact that a dog is a man’s friend, who should not sit on a chain.
My goal is to preserve the natural environment in the village as much as possible. I try not to turn the forest into a city park. That is why next to a well-groomed, trimmed lawn there is a flowering meadow.
There are usually no fireflies on a trimmed lawn, but in Amatciems, on a warm summer evening after dark, hundreds of small lanterns burn in the grass.
And from the ponds in the summer a harmonious chorus of green frogs sounds, which I consider a great honor because such frogs live only in a very clean and unpolluted environment.
I leave a tree withered or broken by the wind in the forest for joy and as a refuge for forest inhabitants – woodpeckers, squirrels or foxes.
The balance between the environment, the technologies used and aesthetics creates a memorable image of the village, which clearly shows that harmony between man and nature exists!”
PS And remember, just by changing your consumption, we are changing the world together!
