Nouveau Riche: The Latvian Way of Life


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August 21st 2007
Published: August 31st 2007
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Nouveau Riche: The Latvian Way Of Life



nou•veau riche: (nōō'vō rēsh') One who has recently become rich, especially one who flaunts newly acquired wealth.
(American Heritage Dictionary)

Throughout Europe there are some filthy, filthy rich people. Think about the old money from places like Lake Como, the French Riviera, or Capri. Families that have had wealth for more than fifty years learn how to live good “rich” lives in a way that is subtle and glamorous in an understated way. These are the people that we used to hear about on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. Usually “Old Money” does its best to stay away from flash and show.

On the other hand, much like West Egg from Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Latvia is the home of the newly rich in Europe. Newly rich people spend their money like crazy. We often see this sort of behavior in the United States among the hip-hop crowds that makes money and spends it as fast as it can. It seems that much of the population of Latvia’s capital city, Riga, falls into this category.

I’m sure you are wondering what observations would lead me to these wild and not so positive accusations. Well, it’s kinda tough to explain. Since I feel very strongly about not taking people’s pictures without their consent, I stayed away from pictures of people and their wild stuff. You will have to take my word at the craziness that Kel and I saw while here.

We arrived in Riga around midnight and were amazed to see the nightlife this city has to offer. People were out walking the city in hundreds, if not thousands. The nightlife in cities like London and Paris is amazing but, due to the large size of these cities, the nightlife isn’t always apparent. Riga is a small city thus, arriving to throngs of people walking everywhere was a bit of a shock. Turns out that there was a big Riga-fest going on all weekend long which added to the normally vivid nightlife making it seem like a partying Mecca.

When we finally got a chance to see the city, the following day, we were immediately struck by the fashions of this modestly sized city. Haute Couture seems to be right at home in Latvia’s ex-communist capital. This manifests itself on women as well as men. One minute you’ll see a man decked out in designer jeans and pristine white alligator shoes and the next minute you’ll catch a father in, what appears to be, a full outfit you would have seen Run D.M.C. in back in the 80’s, complete with gold chains.

Women take the fashions to a whole new and, unfortunately, trashy level. While we were in Riga the weather was quite warm which allowed the warmest of warm weather clothing to come out of the closets. We saw many women, of every age group, wearing see through chiffon-like blouses that allowed full view of whatever bra they were wearing that day. On others, mini-skirts took on a whole new meaning. When I think of mini I usually envision something half way between waist and knee but these skirts left little or nothing to the imagination. Most were short enough that a good sneeze would have revealed their underwear to the world. Kel figures that expensive underwear must be the recipe of the day because it is inevitable that everyone will see whatever it is you’re wearing under that skirt.

All of the women, at least the wealthier women, in this part of the world look like tall thin models. It wasn’t uncommon to see women that were my height. Of course it is always difficult to tell someone’s height when they are wearing five inch heels but I can guarantee that many of them were well over 5’ 10” tall.

Of course, expensive clothing does not a rich person make. There are other signs of wealth everywhere. Many people were driving some of the newest and most expensive German automobiles around. It is pretty usual in Europe to see Bimmers and Mercedes frequently, but here everyone is driving the top of the line model. On the average walk through the city, men (usually younger than me) would fly past us doing ludicrous speeds in brand new BMW 330i’s and 6 series coupes while their friends chased them in $100k Mercedes Benz convertibles.

Needless to say, we felt a bit out of our element. As we walked around in our understated and well worn clothing people always looked at us. I’m sure many of the people in this city would love to be stared at as much as we were but it was always a bit unnerving. Kel got more and more paranoid as gazelle-like young women in droves stared at her. (Kel - I felt like a fashion misfit and that I fell far below their expectations for how a woman should look. Very odd.) I imagine that this is what it’s like for a black person to walk through Russia. We were like aliens in a strange land.

Despite the stares and strange looks we still got more than enough chances to explore what Riga has to offer. It is a pretty little town. With a well restored old town that has buildings from the 12th through 17th centuries, Riga has a bunch of sights to offer for people who like old gothic towns. Outside the quaint old town, Riga is renowned for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture. As you walk through the twisting streets of the newer parts of the city you find rows upon rows of ornate buildings which were built during Latvia’s golden era between WWI and Russian occupation in 1939. Unfortunately, many of these fabulous beautiful buildings are crumbling from Communist neglect but Riga is doing its best to restore its past faded glory.

The only sad part of all this growth and economic expansion is that Latvia has still not figured out what to do with its down-trodden poor left over from the Communist era. While the city center is teeming with young people dressed in the latest, albeit trashy, fashions, one step out of the tourist centers put you face to face with poverty. Buildings are crumbling concrete monstrosities and the people have nothing to show for years of hard labor. While boy-racers speed through city streets in their brand new Bimmers, their nearby country-mates appear to be having a rough go of trying to dig themselves out of the holes that the Communists put them into.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Latvia as the politics of the area continues to change. While Estonia appears to be doing everything it can to remain independent from the somewhat bullying Russia neighbors, it feels like Latvia holds on to its U.S.S.R. heritage a little tighter. I have no facts to prove my feeling, but Latvia just feels more Russian.

Getting Stuff Done and Dealing With Heat and Mosquitos

We spent a bunch of our time in Riga trying to get some work done. I had bunches of blog stuff to work on while Kel needed to continue our travel planning. We only have about 46 free days between today and when we return home that haven’t been planned, but 46 days is a lot of work. With free internet we just had to take advantage of the resources at our disposal.

We managed to get our laundry done and Kel got a chance to get with a travel agent to help with planning a flight from Lithuania to Poland. (Kel - Always a fun time in another language!) I know it’s hard to believe but we continue to find a few airlines that only do printed tickets. This means that Kel has to go to an agent to buy the tickets and get them printed. It is quite a drag compared to the good ole e-tickets that we are so accustomed to.

While in Riga it was abnormally hot for the whole Baltic region. Our average daily high was in the mid to upper 80’s. This isn’t hot for some parts of the world but Riga is not prepared for this kind of heat. In order to keep our hotel from becoming a death trap we were forced to open our windows. Thankfully it got cool enough at night that open windows solved our problem and we had no trouble getting some sleep.

There was one minor oversight in our plan to cool the room. It turns out that the Baltic states have a real mosquito problem. Over the span of two days, more and more of these little blood suckers entered our room despite the fact that we were on the 10th floor. I wasn’t too worried about the growing swarms but Kel, after her Thailand experience, was pretty worried. I gave her a hard time and told her not to be a wuss. Sadly, I would later learn to eat those words.

As I attempted to go to sleep that night I started to be attacked by the converging swarms of bugs. Some of the mosquitoes were the size of a nickel, I kid you not. After being bitten until about 3am, I finally fell asleep. Sadly when I awoke at 6:30am to wake Kel for her nightly corn starch drink, I was throbbing with what seemed like at least twenty bites.

It’s rare that I throw a hissy fit but this was one of those occasions. I was so miserable that I yelled at the top of my lungs, kicked my legs on the bed and threw my pillow against the wall. Very Frustrated!! I finally stalked off to the bathroom and slept on the tile floor with the door closed.

Kel got up and got dressed and asked for a new room. They were really nice and transferred us so that they could fumigate the room for new guests. I awoke a few hours later and we moved rooms. Kel was relieved that we might finally be able to rest without worrying about getting more bites. By this point Kel had at least thirty bites on various parts of her body. She had the slight comfort of being proved right all along but it didn’t do much for the itching. I was feeling better but had a few pretty bad ones, like the one on the knuckle of my pointer finger which became so swollen that I couldn’t close my finger.

Sadly our tribulations weren’t over; we now had the heat to contend with. Since we couldn’t open our windows we were stuck in a room that hovered between 80 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. Through the rest of the night we took turns taking cold showers so that we could drip dry while we watched a movie on our computer. It was less than pleasant, but it could have been much, much worse.

While I do dramatize a bit in these situations to make them somewhat comical for those of you at home, this was how it went down - hissy fit and all. While we were living through the heat and mosquitoes it wasn’t funny, but now, a day later, I can laugh about it a bit. Hope that things are going better for you guys back home. It’s official, we’ll be back in the States in just about three months. Exciting and scary at the same time!



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2nd September 2007

erm....latvia holds onto the past
Hey. Im english. I am about to move to Latvia to start a business hopeully with my financee out there. I been there so many times over the past two years plus researched into its history and people. Believe me, Latvia dont want to hold onto the past. The older people may think the ussr way of life was great and should still have it. The younger people believe in the European Union. But the money which comes from the EU to the Latvian government should go on projects etc like new housing, new roads, new transport system and improve peoples way of life. Not always the case. The government keeps a lot of the money and improve their lifestyles, especially with their homes in Jurmala (21km west of Riga). Latvia wants to move on. Within the next ten-twenty years, when it has got rid of the older generations..it will completey. But believe me, Latvia hates Russia. Government always fighting, latvia claiming that Russia should pay them so many millions for treatment by them and germany in the second world war. Anyway,... enough history..glad your happy with Riga. Its a great little city. If you want to see my travel blogs and photos or Riga (and other euroland destnations.) please feel free to view on - www.myspace.com/danik_travels_the_world Cheers Danik
2nd September 2007

nice one !!
Hi, I dont know whether I will get a chance to be in Riga, but your description of the people around and the place was really vivid. I loved the pictures too. Hope to read more of your travel articles. -- prad
17th October 2010

subject
this is a good website
30th June 2011
Communist Cubism Statue

communist
Hi, I dont know whether I will get a chance to be in Riga, but your description of the people around and the place was really vivid. I loved the pictures too. Hope to read more of your travel articles. ------------------------------------------------- sweety communist

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