Jersika National Partisan Hiking Route Takas

A hard-to-find natural object. Hike length: approximately 22 km, can be completed in approximately 6 hours.

Hike length: approximately 22 km, can be completed in 6 hours.

Difficulty level: medium fitness hike.

Starting point: Jersika Elementary School (can be reached by train, bus).

End point: Vanagu Church (public transport does not run on weekends).

Note: The route includes a swimming break (during the summer season), fishing opportunities, a picnic area, and one public toilet. The route is also suitable for school-age children who already have experience in hiking of this length.

Go on a hike from Jersika to Vanagi, allowing yourself to be challenged in endurance, as the hike leads through forests, swamps, moors, meadows and country paths, and in the historical knowledge of the most prominent figures of the national partisan movement, their activities, see the most significant places about which local legends and written memories of fellow citizens are told. The path begins at the Jersika elementary school and leads to a memorial stone under an old oak tree, further along the way including the Jersika railway station. The inscription on the stone reads “LTS(p)A – For the fighters of the Latvian Fatherland Partisan Association. LTS(p)A united the national partisans of six Latvian districts in the fight against the communist occupation regime in 1945-1955”.

The walk continues along the railway tracks and winds along Lake Jersika, where the forest presents natural treasures: spring-flowering primroses and common sedge. The smell of primroses indicates that you are approaching the bog, but in spring it is especially surprising to see them blooming. A lazy walk is not possible, several ditches must be overcome, crossing the bog provides a tempering - water remains in the moss at every step, cranberry berries shine in the bushes. The bog is replaced by a forest and evidence of the former settlement of these places in homesteads - stately oaks, ruins of buildings, the site of a national partisan bunker surrounded by young growth. The path continues to the place mentioned in the testimonies as the place of founding of the Fatherland Guards (partisans) association. The forest massif also hides the memorial site “Avotnīca” (“Olūtneica”), where a campfire has been set up. The diversity of the forest is surprising, as is the width of the ditches. The destination of the hike is Vanagi Church, where priest A. Juhņevičs served, and about whom the film “Segvārds Vientulis” (directed by N. Pucis) tells the story.