University of Latvia (LU)

Overview

The University of Latvia with its 15,000 students, 13 faculties and more than 20 research institutes is one of the largest comprehensive and leading research universities in the Baltic States. The University offers more than 150 state-accredited academic and professional study programmes. At University of Latvia, research is conducted in over 50 research fields which represent four main areas of inquiry: the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and education sciences. The University of Latvia pays great attention to the development of international collaboration. At present the University of Latvia has signed more than 500 agreements with 326 institutions in 31 European countries within ERASMUS programme.

Expenses

 Daily necessities like food and some services are still relatively inexpensive by Western standards.

The majority of shops are open from 9-10 a.m. till 6-7 p.m. on weekdays and till 5 p.m. on Saturdays (shopping malls mainly work 10 a.m.-9 p.m.). The majority of shops are closed on Sundays, except the shopping malls and some small food stores. Recommendable are the popular market places where you can buy fresh products (vegetables, fruit, mushrooms, berries and dairy products, flowers) from the countryside.

International students should bear in mind that if they wish to travel, buy fresh fruit and vegetables, make frequent telephone calls, and lead an active social life, they should expect to spend about EUR 400-600 monthly.

If you want to buy something to remind you of your stay in Latvia, most likely it will be local handicrafts, works of art or books. Latvia is famous for its chocolate, manufactured by the oldest Latvian enterprise ‘’Laima’’, as well as for ceramics and amber.
 

Accommodation

University of Latvia (UL) offers two student hotels for International students “Prima hostel” and ”Reznas student hotel”. Both of them are located in Riga, Reznas street. There is a well-developed public transportation, it takes about 20 minutes to reach city centre, main building of the University of Latvia as well as Old town and Central Railway station.

The hostel "PRIMA" is located in a 9 floor building reconstructed in 2006 with capacity of 360 tenants. Rooms available at PRIMA are the size of 10-12m² or 15-17m², where the price depends on the number of beds and tenants living in the room. All over the rooms are combined by 2 with shared WC and shower. Namely, WC and shower are shared by 3 tenants on 6th-8th floor or by 5 tenants on 2nd-5th floor.

Reznas student hotel is located in a 5 floor building. Rooms are the size of 18 m² and are shared with one other tenant. Two shared WC’s, showers and a kitchen available on each floor.