The City at the End of the World

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I am currently sitting in a nice warm, cozy computer lab at the most amazing hostel that I have visited in one of the most amazing cities that I have visited: Riga, the Capital of Latvia. It is really far north - definitely the farthest north I have ever been. Today the sun barely managed to get more than 20 degrees above the horizon. Even though it really is only at the end of a bay near the end of the Baltic Sea, it really feels like being at the end of the world.

I arrived here late last night around 11pm local time. (Riga is in the same time zone as Germany, but is so far north that they do not use Daylight Savings time so it is an hour later here.) I was a little surprised at first by how nice and modern and fancy an airport they had. It definitly looked like it had been built in the last 10 years or so. Riga was a quite prosperous port on the Baltic see until about the soviets came and took over the country in the thirties. Then the Soviets worked their magic and it turned into a used-to-be-prosperous town.

There are a lot of signs of Soviet domination but at the same time in the last few years since their re-independence, a lot of money has gone into redeveloping, not only the economies but also the national spirit of the Latvians. I have never seen sucha place with such strong national spirit and pride. For a small land, you really need some sort of national pride if you want to keep your identity as a nation. Also, Latvia has much more often in history been the victim of attrocities rather than the instigator. In fact, there have been so many invaders and counter-invaders that it is hard to seperate which is the history of the Latvians and which is the history of their invaders. Riga is a very strategic location in the Baltic Sea, with access to a large river and a large bay. Additionally, amber is found quite easily around here as well as timber and hemp. The latter two were very important military resources and the former was quite valuable back in the day (in fact it really still is today).

Anyway, Riga has, through the years, grown to be a little-known, but nevertheless relatively important trade and culture center in the baltics. Latvia only has a little over two million people (that is only a little more than half the population of Berlin!), and over a third of them live in Riga (about 700,000). Yet Riga is really flourishing today. There are still lots of problems with poverty and whatnot, but there is a lot of hope and many signs of a prosperous future. New buildings are going up like mushrooms and investment is pouring in like rain (which says a lot, given the climate here, especially in the summer).

The city is a fascinating mixture of very old, somewhat old, and brand-shiny new. Riga is not nearly as old as Vienna or Prague or some of the other cities I have visited. It is perhaps even a little younger than Berlin (a baby by European standards at only about 700 years old), but the city survived fairly much intact through the many wars and whatnot of the 20th century. Consequently it has a fascinating Old Town section which is simply beautiful. Riga, or at least the Baltics and this part of Europe seems to have an architecture all of its own. Although one can say that many of the buildings are gothic or boroque or classical, the Latvians have done these architectural styles all in their own way. I saw that today many times over. Many of the oldest buildings are actually a mixture of many styles. The St. Peter·s church, where I started off my journeys today is a mainly gothic structure, with a strikingly high steeple (72 m) that has a stack of classical-looking columns supporting Russian-style onion-shaped domes.

The old city at least seems to have been built with wild energy because there is just so much detail and color and excitement in the city. I really mean the whole layout of the city. The buildings are in every color imaginable from eal to blue to green to yellow to red. There are lots of carings and sculptures and paintigs. It is very exciting.

I spent most of today just walking around and looking at this city. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and it was so fascinating to see city. It is not big, but perfect for just walking around. The Latvians seem to really like sculptures as there are many around the city. They have their own style too, with a sort of angular massiveness that yet still reflects grace and poise. I saw this style in several statues.

In the newer architecture (with the exception of Soviet Era architectural atrocities) there is a simple elegeance with lots of geometric forms and sweeping lines which are very beautiful in their own way.

It is so fascinating to see how much redevelopment and energy is in this countries capital. There is such nationalism. Soldiers stand guard in front of the freedom monument with defiant national pride and in front of the castle with the same national pride.

It was a really great day but quite cold and so I headed back to the Hostel to do some work and use the internet for a little bit. Little did I know that I was headed for my second adventure of the day.

I had to go to the bathroom so I headed for the men's room. After I was done, I headed to the door. I turned the handle and pulled...but the door did not budge! I tried again. Nothing. The door was quite solidly closed! And I was on the wrong side. I started knocking on the door until one of the employees noticed and tried to help me from the other side. Nothing. They tried for several minutes with just fooling with it but nothing come of it so they finally called in the handyman. About this time, the shower turned off and I realized that there was another guy there too. His name was Dave and he was from liverpool. It was a rather comical and awkward way to get to meet somoene. The handyman tried to give us tools through a window but even taking the handle off did not help. Finally after about half an hour, we just tried kicked the door down. We did not kick down the door but did get a big enough hole in it to get out. This had the advantage of getting us out, but left a wonderful hole in the door, which is still there. Unfortunately, except for the malfunctioning doorknob, it was an exceedingly well/built door. Quite secure. Too secure. It was one of the more unusual travel stories I have had.

That reminds me of my other travel adventure in the Berlin airport. When I was going through security, I gave my passport to the security officer, who looked at it and then looked at me and then looked at it again. This continued for some minutes before she had me stand aside for a bit while she started to let others through. She called another security officer over and they both did the same thing: look at the passport, look at me, look back at the passport. After about 15 minutes of this, they stamped it and sent me on my merry way. It was very strange.

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Comments

[kendal jaggar]

we are arriving on the 5th
hi me and my girlfriends are arriving on the 5th just looked at the weather repeort and hey snow flurrys for monday, read your detailed report and you have given us some ideads about riga. hope you enjoyed your stay but we hope for much snow have a safe journey hope and merry christmas kendal