Rihards Pīks

Rihards Pīks (31 December 1941 to 7 September 2026) was a Latvian cinematographer, film director, and politician who served as Culture Minister (1996-1997), briefly as Foreign Minister in the Indulis Emsis cabinet in 2004, as a Saeima deputy, and as a Member of the European Parliament for the People's Party within the EPP group (2004-2009). He died on 7 September 2026 at age 84. His wife, Sarmīte Pīka, announced the death on Facebook; Apollo.lv and LSM.lv carried the news the same day. A clinical cause of death was not made public. Earlier reporting documented major heart surgery (late 2025) and a subsequent lung surgery (early 2026), with rehabilitation afterward; those health histories must not be restated as the official cause of death.

Pīks was born in Riga on New Year's Eve 1941, in the wartime Latvian General District of Reichskommissariat Ostland. He entered Riga Film Studio work in 1957, according to Apollo's career summary, and later trained as a cinematographer at the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) in Moscow, graduating in 1971. In 1979 he completed higher two-year screenwriting and directing courses as a film director. As a cameraman he shot documentary and fiction work that includes credits such as Divi / Two in Love (1965; Moscow festival gold medal cited by Apollo), 235 000 000 (1967), Father / Tēvs (1967), Keys of the City, Keys to Paradise / Paradīzes atslēgas (1976), and other Riga Film Studio titles. As a director he made the children's film Ja nebūtu šī skuķa... (If It Wasn't For This Lass..., 1980), the Alberts Bels-based drama Šāviens mežā (A Shot in the Forest, 1983/1984 depending on catalogue), and Dubultnieks (1986), among others. From 1987 to 1990 he was director of Riga Film Studio, described as the first studio head elected by the collective. He later founded and directed the National Film Centre (1991-1993), helped found Baltic Films, and taught after founding a film department at the Latvian Academy of Culture (1993-1995).

During the Singing Revolution / Awakening he was associated with the Latvian Popular Front milieu. Latvian sources state that in 1989 he appeared on a Soviet-era isolation list of intelligentsia to be detained in a crisis hour. After independence he moved into media governance (deputy chair of the National Radio and Television Council, 1995-1996) and then national politics with the Latvian Farmers' Union. He served as Culture Minister under Andris Šķēle from 12 August 1996 to 20 June 1997. Apollo reports he resigned after a prosecutor's finding that he had breached anti-corruption law; successor Ramona Umblija took the portfolio. In 1998 he signed the manifesto founding the People's Party (Tautas partija), joined its board, and won seats in the 7th and 8th Saeima. He was a Saeima deputy speaker (1999-2000), chaired or sat on foreign and European affairs committees, led Latvia's Inter-Parliamentary Union group, and in early 2004 briefly chaired the Saeima Foreign Affairs Committee.

On 9 March 2004 he became Foreign Minister in the Emsis government, succeeding Sandra Kalniete. The Latvia MFA chronological list records his term as 9 March 2004 to 19 July 2004. He left when he took his European Parliament seat; Helēna Demakova briefly acted, and Artis Pabriks became minister on 21 July 2004. English Wikipedia prose has wrongly said he was Foreign Minister from 2004 to 2009; that longer span was his MEP mandate, not the Foreign Ministry. During those months Latvia joined NATO (March/April 2004) and the European Union (1 May 2004). In an April 2004 Apollo interview he argued for diversifying Latvia's trade beyond the EU single market toward Central Asia and China transit routes, for dialogue with Russia without surrendering Latvian interests, and for a voting Commissioner for every member state in EU treaty talks.

As an MEP (20 July 2004 to 13 July 2009) he sat with the EPP-ED group for the People's Party, serving on Constitutional Affairs and the China delegation, with substitutes on Foreign Affairs, Budgets, and the EU-Russia delegation. After the People's Party era faded he joined Latvijas attīstībai (from about 2014). He sat on the party board and led a defence working group, ran on Attīstībai/Par! lists (including 2018), and remained a frequent foreign-policy commentator. In 2014 he argued that without NATO and EU interest Latvia might have faced a Crimea-like fate, and he recalled the sprint of unfinished approximation laws in spring 2004.

Family life places their meeting on 5 May 1983 on a Riga Film Studio stair landing and their wedding on 9 December 1983 in Turaida. They raised three children together (Alise, Elīna, and Rihards) plus Justīne from his earlier relationship, and later grandchildren. His sister is painter Līvija Pīka, second wife of actor Valentīns Skulme. Sarmīte's farewell on 7 September 2026 called him cinematographer, director, first elected studio director, culture and foreign minister, Saeima and EP deputy, and within the family husband, father, and grandfather.