Seda - People of the Marsh

Seda lies in the remotest corner of northern Latvia, near the Estonian border. It was built some fifty years ago in true Stalinist style. Workers from all over the Soviet Union were brought here to exploit the vast resources of the surrounding peat bogs. People from more than 20 countries settled here. While membership in the EU is being debated in Riga twelwe years after independence, time seems to have stood still in Seda. Even now, it is a kind of Little Russia, where the language and architecture are Russian, and where the power station station is still fuelled by peat. Yet life in this multicultural enclave has also changed with the advent of the free market economy. In interviews with the pioneers of the early days and their descendants, the film traces the changing social codes between Latvians and incomers.