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In the spirit of the summer solstice, the Kurbads fleet is joined by a 114th Mercedes-Benz car carrier!
Between the summer solstice and Jāņi Day, the Kurbads group came together to celebrate one of the most important Latvian celebrations – the summer solstice – with their families. With the rites of passage of our trucks, we have proven to ourselves the significance of traditions in our daily lives, so at this celebration, we also wanted to demonstrate to the families of our employees the way we honour traditions and integrate them into our day-to-day work. In addition to the familiar rituals – cheese-making, Jāņi ceremony and pūdele lifting under the guidance of folklorist Inese Krūmiņa – this year there was also a performance by the folk band “Brička”.
When we were deciding on the dates for celebrating Jāņi Day and the design of our 114th truck, it became very clear that we wanted to combine the two events into one. It was not the easiest job, as the demand for new car carriers in Europe is still strong and the waiting times are longer. This was not the only challenge – logistics and drivers alike are working at double capacity, so the driver selected for the 114th truck, Māris Gailītis, was actively employed in Spain and was unable to attend the ceremony. Thanks to cutting-edge technology, Māris was able to partake in this special ritual via video call. The artist, Alfreds Paulausks, the man behind the 114th carrier’s design, was also named its godfather. In his flurry of ideas, on the truck, Alfreds was able to revive another Latvian legend, so that Kurbads can tell its story on the highways of Europe.
The 114th driver’s cab is decorated with the legendary Latvian pioneer, explorer and adventurer, Aleksandrs Laime. His insatiable appetite for adventure was fuelled by exciting novels, travel stories and descriptions. Laime started touring Europe when he was just a teenager, then returned to Riga. Despite the outbreak of the Second World War, Laime was able to reach Africa via England and Spain and make it as far as Cape Town. In 1940, he stepped ashore in Venezuela near Caracas. There he settled into a job as a topographer and embarked on the most important stage of his life. Between 1949 and 1955, Laime, on his own and as part of various expeditions, explored the little-known jungles and mountains of Venezuela.
In search of gold and diamonds, Laime became the first man in the world to walk through the jungle to the 979-metre-high Angel Falls. In 1949, as a local authority and the foremost jungle expert, he became an expedition guide and interpreter for the US National Geographic Society and National Geographic magazine. In 1955, he and an Indian escort made the first ascent of the Canaima Plateau and reached the Flamingo, the crashed plane of the American aviator Jimmy Angel. It is noteworthy that Laime found Angel’s plane in the same month and date it crashed 18 years earlier. While exploring the plateau, he named the previously unknown rivers after Latvian ones. For instance, the newly discovered river that flows at its foot was named “Rio Gauya”, i.e. “Gauja”. In the years that followed, Laime also gave other rivers on Devil’s Mountain Latvian names – Rio Ogre, Rio Venta and Rio Daugava. To this day, the people of Canaima call Laime the King of Diamonds, as the Native Americans once nicknamed him.
