Every skate scene has dudes who don’t follow trends in tricks, styles, or clothing and just do their own thing. If they feel like doing a weird boneless finger flip old-school thing (see E. Kalns for reference), they do it and don’t think twice.
To me, such dudes in my scene are real Latvian skateboarders. It’s as if they developed their taste in isolation, watched one skate video growing up, and based everything they do on the belief that Rodney Mullen and Daewon Song are the only skaters anybody should care about.
Such purists usually aren’t trying to get sponsored, be cool, or do anything related to elevating their status through skateboarding. They just genuinely love the act of skateboarding.
Although Arturs Paugrs might disagree with the description above, to me he seems like that kind of pure local skater. He’d do some underflip or cancel flip stuff in tight pants and Janoskis and be completely oblivious to whether Dylan Jaeb fits the Quasi roster or not, or what the hell BigBoys are. It doesn’t matter to him (I would think). He is authentic, passionate and excited about skating as if he’s 12 years old.
And that attitude will never go out of fashion.
——————– Cover photo by Emīlija Stoka/ Intro by Gaba/ Interview by Henrijs Sirmais ——————–
Has life changed since being awarded SOTY?
I guess not much has exactly changed but so to say it has materialised the already existing support from the community. People individually have given me words of encouragement or hyped me up in the past but the whole community coming together and congratulating me was something I experienced for the first time in my life. I’m really grateful for that.
Were you expecting to be awarded soty?
A thought like that may have been in my mind but I have never believed that it could really happen. It’s like a little kid dreaming of going pro.
What does soty mean to you?
Its not the difficulty of the tricks that you do, its the way you influence the community.
Who is your all time favourite soty, local and worldwide.
Rūdolfs Rorbahs and Marc Johnson. MJ once said that he won’t give up until his legs don’t work or the generator runs out of fuel, as a kid when I heard that combined with the influence of his “Fully flared” part that I saw about 150 times it resonates with me. Every time I am about to give up, I always have a flashback to his words. Backtracking about influence, I will never get bored watching Rūdolfs skate, he could do the same bs smith grind 20 times and it would never get old.
Like the saying ’’I’d rather watch Gino push”
With Latvians it’s even more noticable because nowadays when instagram is so oversaturated that you are on the edge of opening the app or deleting it. Then a regular latvian kickflip on flat is just so satisfying. Nothing compares to the hype when our own local people release a video. You don’t have to slide a 20 stair handrail to impress me, I just have to know you as a person and know the struggle it took to land your trick.
Can we expect a SOTY part from you this year?
Working on it.
Are you a part of any crew?
I guess I’m not really part of any crew, but I like skating with TrankBoyz. When I was a kid we had Aizkraukle crew #shoutoutAizkraukle, it wasn’t an official crew so to say. Me and Marks [Voroņenko] would just say, “Aizkraukle represent”. It consisted of Me, Marks [Voroņenko], my childhood best friend Gardijs, and, of course, Krišjānis Kalvāns.
What is your biggest skateboarding influence?
It must be Marc Johnson, no alternative. After him there is Mike Mo, Daewon Song.
You remind me a bit of Daewon.
Yeah, people have said that before.
You have been skating for a long time.
Yeah, 21 years to be exact.
In the last 3 to 4 years there has been a noticeable shift where you seem to be really active, so what changed.
Skateboarding has always been a huge part of my life, but before I was skating mostly just skateparks. My life was very structured in a way. I’m studying or working, then I go to the skatepark, ride for two hours solo and go home. I wasn’t really part of the community aspect.
Then I reached the part of my life where I had a breaking point and got divorced, I was living by the rules that society had put upon me. I was living the so called correct and right way but I felt an emptiness inside me so after the breakup I found myself back in Riga again as a young single guy and I just remember the feeling sitting at Maxlas on a random Tuesday looking at the sunset and time just does not exist for you, you’re just chilling and talking to your friends after a good skate sesh and then rolling downhill back home seeing the beautiful sky. That made me understand that skateboarding truly is much more than I had known before. I wanted to get that feeling again and again, and again, I understood the happiness that street skateboarding with your friends gives you is much more than what the skatepark can ever offer.
How old are you?
I’m 35 years old.
What? You are the most non-gray-haired 35-year-old Latvian skater I know. I feel like you are a lot younger.
Since I was a kid working my first job I knew that I have zero tolerance for doing stuff I don’t like to do. For example, if I have a job I don’t like I will quit after a month because I would lose my mind. I just can’t stand it, so I always try to do what my heart desires. How they say: “Age is just a number.” You get old only when you put yourself in a box of thoughts like: “Oh, my youth is over, now I have to do this and that even if I don’t like it.’’ In the end you’re not the ruler of your own time. I started to feel like I was going with the social constructs and standards that society had put upon me, I had to take a step back and start to do what I want again.
When did you divorce?
I came back to Riga in 2020. Everything hyped me up back then, cause prior to that my time did not belong to me. I had a lot of responsibilities and I had to plan everything. Session from 17:00 to 19:00, then you have to be at home at 19:30. But where is the spontaneity? But if the vibes are good and we want to play some table football after the session. That stuff is out of the question cause I have to follow the plan. And then when I could do whatever I want, I felt that life is amazing.
My girlfriend Emilija is also a skateboarder and she gets it and even encourages me when I change plans spontaneously. When I say, “I kinda want to skate today”, she says, “I’d do that if I were you”.
You are like the first skate couple in Latvia?
I don’t know if we are the first ones who got together, but I remember how stocked I was that my girlfriend can kickflip.
Haha, that’s cool. Okay, why did you start skating?
I think that skateboarding cannot be just a hobby. You wouldn’t stick to it for that long trying tricks for hours if it was just a hobby. People who treat it like a mere hobby don’t stick to it. But how do core skaters come about, people for whom skateboarding is like eating, that they stop doing it? I truly believe that people like us don’t choose it. I remember as toddler seeing a skateboard for the first time and being amazed by it. I enjoyed rolling around on my knees, that’s the first memory of a skateboard I have. And that makes me feel as if skateboarding was given to me rather than I had found it.
When did you get your first board?
I think I was around 13 years old, but that was just a random board I’d use to cruise around the neighborhood. My so-called first pro board was the FIRM deck with Destructo trucks that claimed a life time warranty, that was impressive. I completely destroyed that set up.
Who were your earliest skate buddies?
I was loner at school, but ilt kinda changed when I started skateboarding. People, at least in Aizkraukle back then thought that being a skater was cool. The bullies became neutral and a few other skaters turned into my friends Gardijs and Kalvans. Kalvans was already a good skaters then. I remember him doing fakie 360 flips of curbs and stuff. My mom knew his mom and encouraged me to go talk to him and that’s how we met.
What is one thing you want to say to all the young skaters out there?
Just enjoy skateboarding as much as you can because there can be a lot of side stuff and drama but at the end of the day its all about being on your board and sometimes the best part of your day is jumping up a curb.