For the fourth time, the Success story of the Information Centre for Newcomers’ comes out. This time we meet Firuz Khafizov, who was born and raised in Tajikistan but now lives in Riga and speaks Latvian.
Firuz arrived in Riga in 2008, when during her studies Dushanbe realized that she should use her foreign language knowledge and therefore sought to study outside his country. It was not easy to start to live in Latvia at the beginning. Firuz tells that in Tajikistan the sun shines every day and it also affects people physiologically and emotionally, they are opening up much more quickly for mutual communication. Latvia seemed to be not exactly the right place for him.
At Riga Technical University, the foreign student department where Firuz was trained, the studies took place in English and there were students only from abroad. The Latvian language could only be learned at the level of beginners. However, Firuz already had experience with foreign language learning, and he decided to learn Latvian by himself.
It was as a key to the possibility of comfortable living in Latvia. It turned out that Latvian people were open enough, especially in rural areas. Firuz remembers the trip to the countryside, when, in a beautifully arranged farmstead near Cesis, students were invited to have a space for picnic. It was a turning point after which Firuz began to feel close to Latvia. Also daily, while living in Riga, Firuz communicates in Latvian with neighbours. His children are friends with neighbouring children, regardless of whether the family language is Latvian, Russian or Tajik.
Without losing ties with the country, and even feeling like a representative of the wider region, Firuzs now feels Latvia as his country.