Arturs Silovs spent the first part of his childhood in Ventspils, Latvia, located in the northwest part of the country. He then moved to Riga with his family at the age of 10.

The Penguins netminder pays homage to his roots on his goalie mask, which features each city’s coat of arms. Silovs returns home every summer, and appreciates Latvia’s history and affordability.

“It’s an old town with cobblestone roads, Gothic buildings, a lot of old structural buildings that are really well maintained,” Silovs said. “We have a lot of beautiful churches. A lot of good restaurants, great food, not expensive at all compared to North America.”

Though, as Silovs admitted with a laugh, the one menu item he avoids there is sushi.

“Maybe I don’t know the great places there, but at every single sushi place, half of the roll is cream cheese. And I’m like, I can’t do this,” said Silovs, acquired from Vancouver this offseason after being named MVP of the organization’s Calder Cup championship run. “After coming from Western Canada, for me, it’s impossible.”

Something else Silovs appreciates about where he comes from is the ease of travel. The 24-year-old absolutely loves to visit new cities and have new experiences.

“I think you learn from exploring,” Silovs said. “You come to new places and you sightsee and get that inspiration, creativity. That’s why I think it’s so fun too, especially in the summertime, to take advantage and explore things. And especially take advantage that I live in Europe, and it’s such a multicultural continent. You can just go anywhere in two, two and a half hours, to a completely different language, different culture.”

A destination that stands out to Silovs is Portugal. He went there a couple of years ago for two weeks.

“You go to Porto, it’s a nice, beautiful city on the water. Really charming,” he said. “Then you go to Lisbon, which is down south, and it’s really nice beaches, more isolated, not as many people. So, it’s a great experience.”

As for where Silovs still wants to go?

“There’s a lot of places. It’s a huge globe,” Silovs said with a laugh. “I have been exploring more of Europe. I think Asia would be a pretty nice place to go, especially such a different cultural shock. Maybe go to Japan, China. And I’ve never been to South America. I have never been to the Caribbean side.”

Silovs credits his girlfriend with taking the lead on organizing trips.

“We talk about it, what we want to do,” he said. “That’s the conversation, then she does research and knows pretty well what we want to do most of the time. It’s easy to plan. Hockey, you want to play for as long as you can (each season). Sometimes, it can be shorter, and you explore more.”

Once Silovs got to Pittsburgh in August to join his new team, he began making his way around town pretty much right away.

“I went to Mount Washington, it’s a really nice area to walk around, see the landscape. I think it’s a beautiful city,” Silovs said. “From there, just went to a couple zoos. It was nice, a lot of animals, a lot of penguins [laughs]. Like, a lot of penguins. Like, I have never seen that many penguins, ever. It’s actually impressive. When they were feeding them too, it was a pretty nice scene to watch. Like, there’s like a penguin who doesn’t want any fish and then there’s one who eats 10 in a row, like no problem [laughs].”

During the season, Silovs tries to take advantage of off days when it makes sense with the schedule, usually visiting a zoo or museum.

“What I think the coolest part is that a lot of art pieces are traveling around the world, and sometimes you get lucky and you can see an extremely rare piece,” Silovs said. “The last time I went to Chicago, they had The Great Wave. It was the original one. It was there for exhibition for like, two months. Got there in that time frame.”

Silovs is certainly a man of many interests, but one that he has yet to pursue is astronomy.

“I haven’t really done it yet, but I have it on my mind,” he said. “I think it would be fun. I want to get the telescope, a really good one. It’d be something cool to do. But I don’t know if I want it to be a job. More like a hobby.”

For now, he’s got hockey.