PARTICIPANTS Rigamont Fated participant of the project, always subject to the passions of complicated humanity and international trade. So Rigamont cheese has its own tricky ways of finding its way out of Latvia, depending on what the players in the cheese game decide for its future. Henk Vonk is a Dutch cheese trader with an innovative vision of international trade. Angelo Frosio is a gifted Italian cheese-maker who introduced the special Parmezan method to the local Latvian cheese factory. "Hey Esther! This is Ieva calling. I talked to the director of the Limbazi Piens milk factory. There are no longer any trucks taking Rigamont Cheese to Holland. Angelo Frozio and Henk Vonk had an argument about how to organize the Rigamont trade. All 'our' cheese is going to Italy" "What?" "The best solution is probably to call both Frozio and Vonk and make them friends again, and start the whole thing again." Esther phones Henk Vonk: "We just heard that the Rigamont trade to Holland has stopped. What happened?" "More than ten years ago I invited an Italian cheesemaker to Limbazi Piens to help improve the quality of the cheese, step by step. But what happens after May 2004, as soon as the European market opens up? The factory decides to trade directly with my clients in Italy. It is not so much the money, I am mostly disappointed in people. There is no cheese for you to follow to the Netherlands. It all goes to Italy now. There is nothing more I can say." Now even more curious, we phone Mister Frozio: "A Dutch cheese trader approached me back then, and I decided to help him out. I chose to work with Limbazi Piens because it was still a traditional cheese factory. We introduced the necessary know-how to make this cheese. The Dutch trader organized the trade with my Italian friends. But nowadays, Limbazi Piens is free to sell to the whole world. In Latvia the milk is still a natural product of cows that graze in the fields, and are not forced to produce milk in the winter. In Italy a cow is just a milk machine. I consider making cheese a work of art. To make a sculpture, Michelangelo took a piece of solid rock and turned it into a graceful feminine figure. The cheese artist uses milk - you can't imagine a product more vulnerable to decay - and he turns it into this firm substance, like a piece of art. It is the transformation of the natural state of matter."