Do you already have plans for where to go and what to do over the holiday weekend? If you want to see something you haven’t seen before, then a new nature tourism object is available to visitors not far from Rīga.
This year’s winter has been so mild thus far that we can’t enjoy the usual winter pleasures like skiing or skating in most parts of Latvia. However, we can go hiking and visit attractions that might not usually be visible under the snow. And nothing meets that description better than a sinkhole near Salaspils.
A landslide or karst collapse formed on the edge of the Zeltiņi bog in 2021. It damaged a forest road but created a potential tourist attraction in the process. To the untutored eye it closely resembles a large hole in the ground.
“The Salaspils municipality has installed an information stand about the formation of the sinkhole. It has enclosed the karst collapse with a wooden fence for safety purposes,” says Jana Drēziņa, tourism manager of the Salaspils municipality.
In the near future, it is planned to install road signs to the sinkhole from Miera Street in Salaspils, and to arrange access roads. In the further future, it is planned to turn the Zeltiņi swamp, together with the entire territory of the karst fall, into a nature park with walking trails and recreation areas “to make this place more accessible to tourists, interested parties, and nature activists who want to see this natural phenomenon,” explains Drēziņa.
At the moment however, visitors will have to trek a short distance through the forest. On the upside, they can claim to be among the first to stare into the hole, before the waves of tourists follow in future years. Who knows, maybe one day there will be stands selling ‘I saw the hole of Salaspils’ T-shirts and other merchandise?
More seriously, visitors are reminded about safety. They should not descend into the hole themselves or approach the sinkhole with vehicles, as new sinkholes are also possible in the area. This sinkhole has also grown significantly in size over the past three years and currently its diameter exceeds four meters, and its depth is 8 meters.
Sinkholes are not uncommon in Latvian nature. The most famous are on near Skaistkalne and in Allaži. They are formed when water dissolves and washes away rocks, such as gypsum, causing a void to form underground and the surface of the earth to collapse.
