Latvia’s Edinburgh
There’s been a music venue in Jurmala since 1878, when the Edinburgh Well-house Concert Hall was built to honour the marriage of Tsar Alexander II’S daughter, the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. But why were the hall and the surrounding area named after Edinburgh? The English-speaking Romanov married Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Both Maria and Alfred loved music: he played the violin, she the piano. In 1922 the neighbourhood was renamed Dzintari.