On Līgo Day, 23 June 1973, Marija Naumova was born in Riga – later known on stage as Marie N. The encyclopedia places her childhood in a strikingly theatrical frame: her mother, Jevgenija Soldatova, was an actress at the Mikhail Chekhov Riga Russian Drama Theatre, and at the age of six Marija was already playing Tonija in Blaumanis’s “Skroderdienas Silmačos”. In 2002 in Tallinn, the same Riga-born singer won Eurovision for Latvia with “I Wanna”; a year later Riga hosted the contest, with Naumova co-presenting it alongside Renārs Kaupers.

Naumova’s career links Latvia’s 1990s popular-music scene with the international television culture of the new millennium. Her 2002 Eurovision win was a rare moment when a Latvian pop-music event briefly became one of Europe’s main evening stories.