In the twin towns of Valga and Valka, an invisible line still divides two communities — even since the border between Estonia and Latvia disappeared. A new EU-funded project is inviting young people to fix that.
Stand in the centre of Valga, in southern Estonia, and you’re a few steps from Latvia. Cross the street, and you’re in Valka. The two towns share a river, a history and around twenty thousand inhabitants — yet for most of the people who live here, the neighbour on the other side of the border remains a stranger.
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Valga and Valka were once a single town known by its German name, Walk. When Estonia and Latvia both declared independence in 1918, both countries claimed the town as their own. The dispute went to an international commission and was resolved by drawing a line on a map along a small stream running through the centre of the town. That line became the international border, and border posts appeared throughout the town, sometimes in the middle of residential streets.
Even as part of the Soviet Union, Valga and Valka remained in separate republics — the Estonian SSR and Latvian SSR — until both countries regained independence in 1991, keeping their distinct languages and identities.
In 2007, when Estonia and Latvia both joined the Schengen Zone, the border crossing vanished. But almost twenty years on, the two communities still largely live parallel lives. Different languages, different administrative systems, different schools. The physical barrier is gone, but the invisible one remains.
It’s a problem familiar to dozens of border regions across Europe — places where geography and history have left communities divided, populations declining and residents ageing.
Hacking the invisible barrier
In September 2025, a project called “Hack the Border” set out to tackle this challenge — starting with the generation that has the most to gain.
Backed by the European Union’s Interreg VI-A Estonia-Latvia programme, and led by Tallinn-based hackathon organiser Garage48, the project brought together school students aged 15 to 20 from both towns. The idea was simple: put young Estonians and Latvians in the same room, give them real problems to solve, and see what happens.
The project kicked off with an opening event at the Valka cultural house, followed by a two-and-a-half-day hackathon held at Kääriku, a sports centre in the Estonian countryside. Mixed Estonian-Latvian teams worked through the night on ideas for their shared town. The hackathon was only the beginning: it was followed by months of workshops, mentoring sessions and study trips on both sides of the border.
More than just a hackathon
What surprised the mentors was not just the quality of the ideas, but how quickly the barriers — social, cultural, linguistic — began to dissolve.
Thomas Danquah, a mental health trainer who mentors the student teams, saw it happen in real time.
The proposals that emerged included student exchange programmes between Estonian and Latvian schools, joint youth centres, shared cultural events and more. English, spoken by most participants, became the working language, bridging the linguistic divide.
For Jiří Tintěra, a former Valga architect who worked on the urban future of the twin town, this kind of youth-driven energy is exactly what the region needs. “Valga and Valka are both depopulating, but their population is also aging,” he says. “We need to provide the young generation with something special that they cannot get anywhere else. The border is this niche which provides a competitive possibility — because this is a really unique place.”
The project has a total budget of €83,775, with €67,020 — just over 80% — contributed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg Estonia-Latvia programme. The partners are Garage48, the Valga County Vocational Training Centre in Estonia, and the Valka Jānis Cimze Gymnasium in Latvia.
For Marta Anna Krūmiņa, a student at the Valka Jānis Cimze Gymnasium, the decision to join was immediate. “If we don’t talk, we will not grow as a town — and we need to grow. So when they offered this project, I said yes, and I also said to my friends: let’s go, let’s do it!”