Preili Municipality
Latgalian ceramics capital: 1937 Paris Gold Medal, first People's Artists (1958). Count Borhs family estate (1382-1864). Neo-Gothic palace survives.
Preili is where Latgalian ceramics became art. The region's pottery tradition dates to the medieval state of Jersika, but 20th-century masters transformed functional ware into decorative pieces. At the 1937 Paris Exhibition, Andrejs Paulāns and Polikarps Vilcāns won a Gold Medal. In 1958, they became the first Latgalian ceramicists named People's Artists of the Latvian SSR.
The House-Museum of Polikarps Čerņavskis preserves this tradition: flowing glazes, traditional influences, and shapes that make Latgalian pottery instantly recognizable. The Preili History Museum holds over 20,000 items, including the main ceramics collection and works by Latgalian painters.
Preili Palace adds aristocratic heritage. The Count Borhs (von der Borch) family owned the estate from 1382 until 1864—nearly 500 years. Ivan the Terrible devastated it during the Livonian War. The current English Neo-Gothic structure dates from 1860-1865, built in Tudor style.
Twenty minutes east, Kraslava's Plater family palace (completed 1791) briefly made that town Latgale's administrative hub (1808-1822). By 2026, Preili's challenge is whether ceramics heritage can sustain cultural tourism or whether it becomes another Latgalian town losing population to Riga and the West.