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VENTSPILS: Fishers do not usually wish for a “perfect storm.” But Latvian boating communities are hoping for exactly that: a rare tempest that might, one day, revive waning stocks of Baltic cod.
Decreasing salinity in the Baltic Sea is robbing the saltwater fish of the conditions it needs to thrive.
And as its population shrinks, so do the fishing traditions that have long characterised villages along Latvia’s 494-kilometer (307-mile) coastline.
The result for the communities in this small EU nation is a drive to reinvent themselves, to survive.
With the European Union steadily cutting allowable catches of Baltic cod, and moving toward a total ban to replenish stocks, towns and villages are diversifying into tourism and seafood processing.
“We launched a new marina for yachting, offered services for sea travelers, and a French investor opened a brand new shipyard for yacht building,” Agris Stulbergs, harbormaster for the port in the village of Engure, explained to AFP.
Leisure boating has become a favored activity in this village, located just 50 kilometers from the capital Riga, and others.
Farther west, in the port city of Ventspils, Juris Petersons, a lifelong seaman, reminisced how Latvian fishers used to bring in lavish hauls of fish highly valued in kitchens from Russia to Britain.
“Back in the mid-80s the Latvian fishing fleet brought in 55,000 tons of Baltic cod, in addition to salmon, herring and many other saltwater fish,” he said.
Now “the environmental conditions have become so unfavorable to cod growth that Latvian fishermen are allowed to catch just 16 tons of cod a year,” he said.
“And even that amounts only to the accidental by-catch when we fish for herring,” said Petersons, an industrial fishing boat skipper until he sold off his trawlers last year.
The Baltic Sea is fed by a number of large freshwater rivers. It is connected with the North Sea only through the shallow Danish straits, preventing Atlantic saltwater from entering the Baltic basin.


In order to recover, the cod population would need a rare seastorm, with just the right windspeed at the correct angle to push masses of saltwater into the Baltic Sea.
That “happened at least twice during the previous century, but currently we’re waiting for that perfect storm for the third decade,” Petersons said.
Given the smaller yield, many in the industry have focused on quality over quantity.
“All the fish canning companies... have either gone out of business or turned their production lines into making more valuable export-grade products,” said Janis Megnis, chief of the Roja port administration.
Their high quality herring and anchovy products “can be found today from Walmart in the United States to stores in Australia and Japan,” he said.
Political changes have also affected the industry.
Historically Latvia’s fish processing industry mainly served markets in Russia and Belarus.
But with the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, followed by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the resulting Western sanctions, Latvian fishing companies have been forced to seek other markets.
The biggest importers today are Canada, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Denmark and the UK, according to the agriculture ministry.
New markets include Arab countries and South Africa.


Many families in Latvia’s coastal towns have also turned their former fisheries into guesthouses and vacation destinations or switched from selling raw fish to the more lucrative smoked, prepared and spiced varieties.
“My husband is a fifth-generation fisherman: he goes out to sea for fish, which we then smoke and turn into high-end products,” said Iveta Celkarte, who runs a fishing estate in Berzciems village.
“We also have a family cafe... serving our own seafood,” said Celkarte, who has also become a television and social media personality.
Celkarte offers three-hour tours about the history of traditional fishing, taking visitors on a stroll through dunes to the shore and finishing with a special meal.
“For me it is important to tell people about the traditions of our coast, the history of fishing and the life of previous generations working on the sea” she said.
Aivars Lembergs, a former mayor of Ventspils, said he began turning his city into a manufacturing hub and developing tourism has been key, and is paying off.
The city is seeing many tourists coming in from neighboring Lithuania.
“During summers you’ll sometimes see more Lithuanians on the streets of Ventspils than Latvians, as Lithuania has a very short Baltic coastline, and their tourists come here to enjoy the short Baltic summer,” said Lembergs, who was mayor between 1988 and 2021.

SAN DIEGO: San Diego Comic-Con is the latest location where the ugly-cute dolls named Labubu have been trending, with fans carrying the plushies globally popularized by celebrities Rihanna, Lizzo, Dua Lipa, and Lisa from the K-pop group Blackpink. The wide-eyed and grinning doll was created in 2015 by Hong Kong artist and illustrator Kasing Lung. In 2019, Lung allowed them to be sold by Pop Mart, a Chinese toy company that sells collectible figurines, often in “blind boxes.”
“Blind boxes” are sealed boxes containing a surprise item that is usually part of a themed collection.
Naomi Galban, from San Diego, waited in line on Sunday at the Pop Mart booth in the San Diego Convention Center for a chance to get her first Labubu.
“Every time I go to a Pop Mart store, they’re sold out,” the 24-year-old told Reuters. She hoped to buy one for her little sister.
Emily Brough, Pop Mart’s Head of IP Licensing, spoke to Reuters on Thursday about Labubu fans at Comic-Con.
“We love to see how fans are personalizing it (Labubu) for themselves,” Brough said next to the Pop Mart booth.
While Brough noted that there were many people with a Labubu strapped to their bags and backpacks at Comic-Con, the doll’s popularity did not happen overnight. Labubus had a huge boost in 2019 after Pop Mart began selling them, and in 2024, when Blackpink’s Lisa, who is Thai, created a buying frenzy in Thailand after she promoted Labubu on social media.
Pop Mart saw sales skyrocket in North America that same year, with revenue in the US in the first quarter of 2025 already surpassing the full-year US revenue from 2024, Pop Mart said.
When he created Labubu, Lung gave the character, who is female, a backstory inspired by Nordic mythology.
He called her and his other fictional creatures “The Monsters.”
Diana Goycortua, 25, first discovered Labubu through social media, and before she knew it, it felt like a “game” to try and collect the dolls.
“It’s a little bit of gambling with what you’re getting,” the Labubu fan from San Diego said on Sunday while waiting at the Pop Mart booth, concluding that her love for the character made it worth trying blind boxes.
Goycortua already has three Labubus, and was hoping to score her a fourth one at Comic-Con.