On Thursday, 22 May, Latvijas Banka is issuing a gold collector coin "Our Land". The coin's design, created by Māris Upenieks, offers a symbolic portrayal of one square centimetre of Latvian soil.
The collector coin bears the imprint of the author's deeply personal story. A symbol of Latvia's land, this coin represents a piece that belongs to all, cherished like gold, but ultimately priceless, even when cast in gold. The coin also stands as a symbol of our unwavering resolve to defend our land – from the very first to the last square centimetre.
Latvia covers an area of sixty-four thousand five hundred and eighty-nine square kilometres. Vast landscapes with dense forests, wide fields, clear lakes, refreshing rivers, mossy marshes, and sandy beaches. Hundreds and thousands of our native homesteads, villages, and towns. Every part of this is the land of our Latvia.
However, each of us has a place in Latvia that feels a little closer to our heart than the rest. A place where the generations before us lived and worked, setting the groundwork for the story of each of our lives.
For the author of the coin, this place is in the Preiļi region, where, after participating in the freedom fights, his great-grandfather bought a piece of land on the outskirts of a small village in the early 1920s. Not long after, he built a log house there with his own hands – a home whose hearth still radiates warmth to this day.
A small piece of soil, measuring precisely one square centimetre, from the yard of the author's great-grandfather's home, was scanned and recreated in this gold coin.
The artist won Latvijas Banka's open design competition organised at the end of 2023 with his graphic design proposal for the "Our Land" coin, a competition open to artists and art students.
The gold collector coin will be available for purchase on the website e-monetas.lv from 12:00 (noon) on 22 May. The price of the coin is 175.00 euro; the purchase limit for one buyer is 2 coins. The mintage of the coin is 2500. The coin was struck by Koninklijke Nederlandse Munt (the Netherlands).