The current politician Inese Aizstrauta of the Latvian Green Party (Union of Greens and Farmers) was born on July 23, 1957 in the Latvian part of the Soviet Union. For several terms she has been the mayor of the Latvian city and seaside resort of Jurmala (= Юрмала; west of the capital Riga).
Before that, however, Aizstrauta’s career was less political. She graduated from the Riga Technical College and subsequently studied architecture at the Riga Polytechnic Institute. In 1984 she received her diploma. Since 2001, she has worked professionally as a senior architect in Jurmala. The tourist resort on the Baltic coast is famous for its wooden houses. In addition, the wooden architectures are interrupted by constructions in the concrete style of modernist architecture. They date back to the Soviet era.

Aizstrauta and her architectural knowledge are committed to the reconstruction of the historical wooden buildings and the individual modernist buildings that characterize the townscape of Jurmala. She hires only trusted architects for the restoration projects so that the local architectural style can continue.