I am also preparing an italian test, a CILS test. Even if I’ve lived in Italy for so many years and graduated the university there, I have no official paper which states my language knowledge. So it just might be useful someday. Unfortunately these tests are not for free, they cost quite a lot actually, and it is no fun to fail.

It is still winter here, damp and nasty weather with so few sunny days. I cann’t get used to this. I miss the sun very much. It’s depressing even to look out of the window. Grey soviet time concrete buildings look uglier and people lock themselves in their two – three bedroom cells in front of  TV sets, all you can see is the blue light reflecting outside the windows. I miss Italy. With all it’s haste and traffic, with all it’s apparent friendliness, the crowded streets, little caffes, apperitivo time, my friends, even the dirty streets. Although all this italian Dolce Vita is very superficial, it is like a silver lining that covers all the ugliness underneath. Like everywhere I guess. Only here, in Latvia, the silver lining is torn apart, more real, more truthful, you can see both – the ugly and the pretty side by side, even if it hurt’s your eye a bit.

Sorry, I am a little depressed (although I can still do some irony), and I don’t want to contaminate you with my sunday morning feelings, so take this lightly. Tomorrow it might be a sunny day, and I might get optimistic again!

So, to improve my mood I have dedicated myself to some house plants. I have few, cause I moved in recently, and I cannot keep any house pets yet, not knowing what I am going to do in a forseeable future. Let’s have a look at my green companions :

Theses are my mums plants, they were already there when I moved in

I don’t like succulents and cactuses at all. I can’t connect to these slow growing and never changing things. I have no love for them. I love to plant a seed and see it grow, changing day by day, blossoming… I love to see the cycle of life developing right in front of my eyes. And cactus just doesn’t do that. They are boring and unpleasant to touch. The one on the left, actually makes a gigantic, stinky and hairy flower once in a year. Please tell me, how can you love something like that? I don’t like them and they don’t like me, that’s why so many cactuses have died on me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t kill them on purpouse, they just refused to prolongue their suffering. I think that the next time I’m visiting my mum, I will bring her these things back, for their sake. And on the right, there is a small geranium, I am a bit indifferent to the specie. They say, that when you have ear aches, you have to crush a geranium leaf and put it in your ear to stop the pain.

my latest addition,a cordyline

I bought it in a supermarket, I love cordylines, I have one really huge at my mothers house (the one I brought back from Italy). This is aprox 30 cm high, and soon I’ll have to repot it. The supermarket soil is bad and vase is too small. But I’ll wait till march to do that.

water pahira or the money tree

This was the first plant I brought home. It was almost dead at the supermarket and they sold it very very cheap, some 30 cents. Well it was supposed to die, but I am determinate to make it a survivor. It had more leaves, but when I brought it home, there were some -15 degrees celsium outside and the leaves just froze off. Hmm, they call it the Money Tree, yeah, my mum  is making jokes about it, that looking at my money tree she can understand why I have so few.

chilli

This is an experiment to see if I can grow some chilli at home. My boyfriend is a huge chilly lover, he had some 50 plants of various types and species at home. I am mostly just a chilli consumer. But the plant is beautiful, and I will repot it in mamas greenhouse.

my parents beast, he just looks cute, but actually he’d bite your fingers off in no time

riga canal

some picture from my city on one of those rare sunny days

the Freedom Monument

Oh, the moral. I don’t think I can squeeze a moral out of this story. Maybe just a cynical one. There are times when you’re sad, and times when you’re happy and excited. Deal with it. Wow that’s harsh.

p.s. about the previous post, My parents saw Anna Karenina movie and they didn’t like it at all. They are the soviet time generation and they didn’t like the stage effects and the lack of true russian emotions and sufferings. And my mum snobbed the actor who played Vronsky – what,that teenager, she told. Vronsky was a MAN! and she kept comparing the movie to the original russian movie. Oh, and she thought that Anna (Keira), was too pretty for the role, an also Karenin had to be older and uglier. But they did like the actor who played Levins part, he had that russian looks about him!

Patriotic petchka

Vertical flue works amazingly

We didn’t need much incentive to light the new petchka, though! Ivan’s worked hard at smashing a hole in the ceiling of the extension and building the chimney up through the terrace, topped with a cute little chimney pot, so we now have the stand-alone stove keeping us toasty. It’s so effective that we haven’t yet lit the main petchka which drives the radiators, but I don’t think it’ll be long now.

Simon and Philip popped over to check up on the house in StefanK, and we spent a delightful few days with them, sunbathing and relaxing at Sv. Vlas (marvelling at how much it’s all changed since we first went there, just four years ago), met up with his builder in StefanK and ended up at NovoP.

This deal went down a treat with Simon

We’ve also ‘enjoyed’ some less welcome guests around the house, including death-watch beetle, woodworm, a wasps’ nest and pantry moths! After attacking the wood-nibblers with various Bulgarian-bought concoctions, we have been reliably informed that Wykamol is the weapon of choice. So far we can only find that in the UK. The wasps’ nest has had vinegar, fly spray, diesel and WD40 chucked into it, but like true Bond villains, they just will not die.

It was the pantry moths that really took some beating though. Laying eggs which turned to maggots it turned out they were in EVERYTHING: lentils, pasta, chickpeas, flax seeds…but the final straw was finding a maggot waving at me from the middle of an unopened bar of Green & Black’s dark chocolate.

Now this was an act of war.

I emptied all the cupboards, tossed away anything looking vaguely suspicious, scrubbed then hoovered into the corners of every drawer and cupboard. Anything that hadn’t been thrown away was banished to the freezer for a couple of days to kill any hidden eggs that I might have missed. Even the hoover bag was frozen. To date, no further moths have been spotted in the kitchen.

Unless you count our Moth who spent a week here with Ag, arriving in perfect time to counterbalance my murderous streak by helping Jeremy finish constructing and painting the wood-store. We had a hilarious week of work and play: filling the new shed with over 10 cubic metres of firewood (no mean feat), picking grapes from the next door’s garden, introducing them (the parents, not the grapes) to the delights of the restaurant and of course Mitko (“Hasn’t he got lovely eyelashes?”) and Zlatina, stroking the cats and playing silly games.

We also took a drive to Shipka village to gaze in awe at the golden domes of the Russian-built church, climbing the 678++ steps to the Shipka freedom monument, whilst bemused by the communist Buzludzha on the horizon and finally staying the night in some luxury in the town of Kazanluk, the capital of the Valley of the Roses, which is also famous for its Thracian tomb.

Phew.

Capt’n Woodstore ahhaarrggh me hearties

As workers arrive, things progress quickly

Ta-daaa!

Smelling ‘Otto of Roses’ in the 60-year-old containers

A LOT of steps for someone awaiting a knee op…

Communist monument built by aliens in 1981

MothAg in fairytale castle

The Shipka Four

Shest has also had an eventful couple of weeks, although without ‘catcam’ we will never know exactly what scrapes he’s got himself into. On two separate occasions he’s come back with cuts and bruises on his forelegs, in so much pain he just growls at anybody who’s listening. So far a day of r&r has sorted him out each time, but I hope he’s learnt his lesson now. This level of curiosity doesn’t tend to work out well for cats.

Just checking things, daddy…

]]> http://gallivance.net/2012/10/07/the-riga-ramble/ Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:40:59 +0000 gallivance.net http://gallivance.net/2012/10/07/the-riga-ramble/

After getting gezellig last night we were rested and ready to take on Riga this morning. It was the perfect day for a long, no-destination-in-mind walk. The clouds were flying, shifting the sky from clear blue to threatening gray.

Riga feels so different from Tallinn’s intimate scale of narrow, meandering streets. Graced with beautiful, wide boulevards and striking monuments, Riga reminds us of when we lived in Berlin.

The charming Old Town is surrounded by a ring of beautifully landscaped parks with canals, fountains, and picturesque bridges.

And can you guess what’s on this bridge? That’s right – locks! Riga has its very own Locks of Love! Do we have any of these in the U.S.?

We did notice that these locks seems to be much “sturdier” than the ones in Helsinki.

They have a Baltic Bike Loaner Program which thrills James.

The Freedom Monument was built in 1935 to honor the people of Latvia in their struggle for freedom. She is known as “Liberty” and stands atop a tall spire overlooking Old Town. As Americans, we always love Lady Liberty!

Guards patrol at her base. The Latvians consider it miraculous that she was not torn down by the Russians during their recent fight for independence.

So after only one day of fun exploring, we can already say that Riga is a city of stunning architecture …

… amusing signs …

… and talented street musicians.

We can’t wait to see more.

Peaceful Trails,
Terri and James

Arriving with zero preconceptions was refreshing. It helps you to see a place with even clearer eyes. Turns out that it has two of my favourite things by the bucketload – graffiti and art nouveau architecture. Observations #1 and #2.

To start with, I established myself on Caka Street – pronounced Chaka and not Kaka, as I fatally discovered – and noticed a preponderance of haberdasheries, money exchanges and bakeries. Observation #3.

Then I went walkabout, deliriously tired from my train experience but pleased to be back in the familiar surrounds of Europe. I checked out some of the main sights of the Old Town on my improvised walking tour and went and got as much literature as I could carry from the uber-helpful tourist office. Decided to kill some time by having a look in the High Street shops too. Now, ladies, I don’t want to alarm anyone but <stage whisper> it’s all the same. Same shit, different shop. Fashion – yawn.

The town seems to attract a number of foreign workers, I suppose because we’re back in the EU, and I heard Kiwi, British and Russian voices fairly frequently. I thought, being near the polyglottic Scandis, that most people here would speak English. I was wrong. They primarily speak Latvian, a language spoken by approximately 1.5million people here and abroad, while many also have a working knowledge of Russian and English. There are a lot of non-native speakers too, which I found bizarre for such a specific population. I met two guys from New Zealand living in Riga whose Latvian was pretty good. I suppose it could function as an awesome code language anywhere else in world.

The Old Town is beautiful and well-preserved. You can merrily meander about its streets taking in the picturesque buildings and cobbled roads at random. For some reason, despite my Spidey senses usually serving me well, I just couldn’t get my sense of direction within the city walls. It was like being stuck in an avalanche. After much cursing, I managed to find the Three Brothers, famous for being the oldest buildings in the city and housing an underwhelming but free architecture museum, and the Liberty Monument, but only an absolute retard could miss Liberty, it being nearly 43m tall. It was built to commemorate the many, many lives lost in the Latvian struggle for freedom. More on that later…

The Old Town from on high

Liberty monument

The Three Brothers, surviving architecture from the 15th century. i.e. well old

I turned one corner outside the Art Museum and found a man blocking the road with a plastic cordon ribbon tied to a drainpipe and then to his bag.

“What are you doing, friend?”

“Ah, we’re filming. A movie. We will take 3, maybe 5 minutes.”

“What movie is it?”

“A Korean movie. ‘In Berlin’.”

“Thiiis is Riga?”

That didn’t stop Brad Pitt and co. pretending Glasgow was Philadelphia last year though so I suppose I’ll let them off.

Despite coming from Russia, a land crammed with artistic sophistication even at the farthest reaches, I was deeply impressed by the level of culture in Riga. As I arrived, a ballet festival was drawing to a close and an opera festival was just beginning. One item in the programme was a manga opera – how good does that sound?? I wish I could tell you but the schedule didn’t work for me.

Instead, the main creative pursuits that I was interested in were the street artists and the architects. The buildings in Riga are all beautiful and I have taken hundreds of bland snaps of very attractive buildings in all manner of styles. Ask me for a slideshow some day.

Those of the early 20th century, the era to which I believe I should rightfully have belonged, interested me most. Luckily, you don’t have to go far to see deco. More than a third of the buildings in the centre are built in that style so it’s something of a capital for Jugendstil, as the locals and the Germans call it. Elizabetes Street and Alberta Street are two of the best examples for an easy walk. Peksens was one of the most celebrated local architects in the style and so they’ve turned his old apartment into a shrine to the art form. It’s authentic in the interior as well as the exterior and how one of my homes will one day look.

Alberta Street

I’ll leave the graff to pictures:

Graffiti

Work in progress.

Liberty monument getting minced

In most civilised cities there tend to be scuzzy areas that are colonised by students, musicians and artists. In Riga, this used to be the Andrejsala district next to the working docks until they closed it down with grand ideas of redeveloping it into a Tate Modern style art complex. At the moment that’s still nothing but hot air, but it’s still a popular place to pedal to of an evening with a basket-full of beers to enjoy the scenery and artwork. Very good it is too. The area of Spikeri behind the central market and on the edge of the ghetto has sort of displaced it but it’s a cheap imitation compared to before.

Arts area

One sunny Sunday morning I went to the enormous Central Market for a poke around the wares. There are several large buildings that look like hangers, dedicated to vegetables, meat, fish and local produce but outside spreads a sea of extra stalls, selling everything from chapkas to hanging baskets. The scent of strawberries wafts over since it’s the season and many old ladies stand in the pathways clutching fistfuls of beige tights to hawk at passersby. I particularly liked the woollen blankets, fluffy mittens, ceramics and felt Viking hats. I was replacing one of these hats on a stall after admiring it and thanking the vendor when he broke into an explosive rant of Russian and rushed off cursing me, snatching a bog roll as he went. I’m pretty sure that he was angry with me and not the urge to toilet.

Central market

Inside central market

Come and get your socks!

Speaking of Russians, Latvia had a bit of a bum deal when it came to being occupied in the early part of the 21st century – the Russians had two goes and Hitler muscled in for a while too. There’s a good historical run-down here. In the city centre there’s a sombre but very good museum dedicated to the Occupations - if you ignore the stupid man on the door getting offended when tourists greeted him in Russian.

In summary:

• The Soviets claimed it in 1918 after WW1.
• Liberation War ensues. Latvia is finally victorious and an independent republic is declared in 1920/21-ish.
• Hitler’s Foreign Minister Ribbentrop and Stalin’s Foreign Minister Molotov sign a Non-Aggression Treaty, also known as the Hitler–Stalin Pact, which allows Hitler to attack Poland and later – Western Europe. The pact includes secret protocols which designate Finland, Estonia, Latvia and parts of Rumania as Soviet sphere of influence.
• Soviet troops reoccupy the country in 1940 under spurious terms.
• In 1941 more then 15,000 Latvian citizens are deported on Moscow’s orders to gulag camps as counterrevolutionaries. Only 1/5 of the more than 5000 survive. The families as accessories are sent to forced settlement areas in Siberia. Death rates are high, especially among the children and elderly. An estimated 25,000 (1.25%) Latvian citizens become victims of the one-year Communist rule.
• A month later the Nazis attack the USSR, seize Latvia and bring in Holocaust policies.
• When WW2 draws to a bloody close, the Soviets claim Latvia again and keep hold until 1991, sending lots of dissenters to camps in the meantime.

First and foremost, they manage where Russia failed, to present the gulags as a bad thing. People being pulled from their homes in the middle of the night, separated from their families, put on trains to the middle of Siberia; desperate notes to loved ones dropped through the wagons onto the track in hope; shacks as shelters with only bare bunks and temperatures so low that your hair stuck to the wood in the night; forced labour for endless hours on pitifully small, rotten rations etc.

Very harrowing, but they also presented a positive tale of survival, endurance and resourcefulness under horrific conditions. For example, one man had made a violin from a couple of old boxes and some homemade glue. Women sewed birthday gifts from coloured thread pulled from their clothes. Fishbones were turned into needles; tin cans were melted into spoons. Much of it was ingenious.

On a lighter note, after I’d spent one night catching up on some sleep in a hostel, I couchsurfed with the lovely Annija and her buddies for a couple of days. She is a student working part-time in translation for a Latvian company. Impressively, she speaks Latvian, Russian, German, English, Norwegian and a sprinkling of other languages. We had great chats about Russian tattoos, good new music, transvestites, strawberries and fjords as we sampled her delicious cooking or listened to live jazz in one of the hip cafes down on Miera Street. I like her muchly.

One comment she made with regards to our generation being literally spoilt for choice, to the extent that it paralyses us, stuck with me.

“We have so much choice now and we expect to have it all. It means we view the options we don’t take as losses instead of simply a decision, almost mourning them. I think it’s part of the reason that people are so bad at committing these days.”

General ponder. Then we cracked open another beer.

Ja ir viena lieta, kas man pašlaik tiešām pietrūkst, ir braukšana ar velo (kaut kā mātes instinkts neļauj bērnu siet slingā un sēsties virsū savam mīļajam ķirsītim). Tāpēc ar sāpi sirdī un baltu skaudību rakstu šo bloga ierakstu, jo pati ai kā gribētu.

Tātad – tie, kam ir velo un gribas piedalīties kādā kopīgā velo pasākumā, velciet laukā riteņus, pušķojiet ar ziediem (vai dariet to kopīgi pirms parādes pie Dutch Bike puišiem), pucējieties paši un dodaties ielās.

Praktiskais info Velo ziedu parādes Facebook lapā, bet īsumā: 12.maijs, sestdiena, tikšanās vai nu 10:00 pie Dutch Bike (Valkas ielā 7) vai arī 12:00 laukumā pie Brīvības pieminekļa (ja pušķojaties pašu spēkiem). Maršruts: Brīvības piemineklis – Kaļķu iela – Šķūņu iela – Pils iela – Poļu gāte –11 Novembra krastmala – Eksporta iela – Viesturdārzs – Valkas iela 7. Organizētāji sola kārtīgu čillošanu arī pēc parādes galapunktā. Programmā arī daži lieliski mūziķi: Anete Kozlovska, Kārlis Kazāks, Elvi Soulsystems. Un ēšana Ecocatering izpildījumā. Tagad tik atliek ar kādu tur augšā sarunāt lieliskus laikapstākļus!

Iedvesmai video:

ENGLISH:

If I could, I would… For all you people in Riga that have bicycles and want to go for a joint bike event – why not join the Bicycle flower parade this Saturday (12th May). More info in Latvian on their FB page, but in short: meeting points are either at 10:00 at Dutch Bike store on Valkas Str 7 or at 12:00 by the Freedom monument. The parade will start at the monument and end with a chill-out after-party at Valkas Str 7. They will also have food from Ecocatering and one of my favourite musicians playing. If you don’t have flowers or don’t know how to decorate your bike – go to the earliest meeting, organizers will help you! Enjoy and may the weather be your friend!

On a visit to the Latvian capital of Riga in May 2008 we had an educational ride in a taxi on the 4^th.

Kim made the first approach to the driver and asked if he could take some of us back to the city from an out of town restaurant  and to our surprise he indicated that he could take all five of us in his Renault Megane.  This was a vehicle that was clearly unsuitable for accommodating five passengers and probably not licensed to do so either!  Kim doubted this and just for clarification enquired a second time and clearly running short on patience he gave her his “why can’t this stupid woman understand look”, and immediately increased his carrying capacity to an absurdly optimistic eight!  Kim looked even more startled by this and even examined the interior of the car for concealed seats by sticking her head through the open window.  He responded by raising his eyeballs so far into the top of his head that if he’d had laser vision he would have fried his brains.  This was our cue to accept the five in a taxi invitation and we piled in.

Then the fun really started!  He immediately quizzed us about our national origins:

“Where are you from?” He enquired

“England” said Micky

“London?”

This is a standard opening conversation with a European taxi driver that frequent travellers will be familiar with; the only place they really know in England is the capital, and sometimes Manchester, so they always make reference to it.

“No, Lincolnshire” Micky informed him without managing to raise a flicker of recognition and immediately closing this topic of conversation.

“Do you know Tony Blair?”

“Well, not personally, no”

The scary driver went on to explain how from his personal perspective life was desperately unfair in Latvia.  From his explanation of conditions we discovered that he was a Russian living in Riga and by his own self-assessment suffering all sorts of discrimination (which is hardly surprising really when they (the Russians) had spent forty years or so kicking holy shit out of the place!)   His solution to the problem was the advocacy of a red revolution and I for one thought it sensible not to disagree too robustly.   He spoke with a thick Russian accent and had the unfortunate habit of preceding each statement with an unpleasant phlegmy hack that was half cough and half retch and definitely only half human.

“Times are hard, it is very expensive to live in Riga”

“No way” said Micky “This place is very reasonable!”

This led to a few seconds of choking laughter and uncontrollable hacking by the driver and after a few more cost of living exchanges Micky did eventually concede that life was getting a bit tougher in the west;

“Yes,” he said “I have to agree, things are getting harder in England too, look at us, we used to have two wives each but now we can only afford one and a third to share between us!”

Actually Russians have had a bit of a hard time since independence because when Latvia broke free in 1991, it granted automatic citizenship to those who had lived in the first independent Latvian state, between 1918 and 1940, but not to those who immigrated here after the war, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union.

Under Soviet rule during the Stalin years thousands were arrested and sent to Siberian labour camps, or executed. Later, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians flooded into the republic under a deliberate policy of Russification. The Latvian language was squeezed out of official use.  Latvians were resentful citizens of the USSR and by 1991 they comprised only half of the population of their own country, while in Riga only a third were Latvian.

Today Latvia is determined to revive the national identity. It says that its policy towards Russians who immigrated there during the Soviet period is aimed not at punishing them for the ‘crimes’ of the Soviet regime but at ensuring that they learn Latvian and integrate fully into society. In order to naturalise, Russians must take a test in Latvian, and pass an exam about Latvian history in which they must ‘correctly’ answer that the country was occupied and colonised, not liberated, by the Soviet Union in 1945.

Well, I went to Riga. And I came back alive, which could be considered a miracle.

Let me start by saying that this past weekend had perhaps the coldest days during this winter season. It was -8 in Bordeaux, and I heard that the city, which rarely sees snow during winter, has been covered in white. I had just flown back to Belgium on Thursday, with a trip to Riga booked the next day. Weather forecast said that it’d be -25 in Riga during the weekend, -36 with the wind chill. Uh oh.

Hmm. Dilemma. The sudden cold attack wasn’t expected. Was I going to be conservative, cancel my trip, lose the flight cost of 50 Euros (which wasn’t all that much, really), or live the spirit of the true north strong and free and put myself through the challenge of the extreme?

Not gonna lie, but it was actually a very hard decision. I was on the brink of NOT going because as much as I’d like to say I’m not afraid of cold, I am. One can be used to cold weather, but not immune to it. And I had been away from those bleak Canadian winters for two years now (not that Canadian winters are that cold anymore, apparently), so I wasn’t sure if I was totally ready for it.

In the spirit of “Do now, regret later, then never regret” (kudos to my role model Geoff), there was no backing out. So I stuffed everything I thought I’d need into my backpack, hopped onto a train to Charleroi, and off I went into the unknown once again.

Latvia in February turned out to be quite a fantastic experience. Okay, it really wasn’t as cold as expected; I think I exaggerate everything in my mind, just to get mentally prepared. Then again, Canada has indeed trained me well for the past 15 years, hah! During my one day and a half in Riga, I made a few notes about the trip and concluded with ten (hopefully convincing) reasons to visit Riga, some particularly pertaining to a freezing February. Here we go! (Click here to see all of the pictures on Facebook.)

Reason 1: It’s cheap. The flight was cheap. The hostel was cheap. The food was cheap. Everything was cheap.

The cheap flight was ultimately what really drove me to book this trip to Riga, with return tickets from Brussels-Charleroi at 50 Euros. Winter probably has something to do with the low rates…go figure. An additional note aside from price: when given the choice, I’ll always choose a window seat over the aisle, whether it’s a flight or a train ride. Only from a window seat can I catch glimpses of breathtaking views like the one above, on the way back to Charleroi. At first I wasn’t even sure if those were clouds or snow islands…but it’s gotta be clouds. I think this is the closest I’ll ever get to viewing the Earth from the universe. Simply spectacular.

Reason 2: Latvia sounds exotic and mysterious. It’s more east than typical eastern Europe and almost as north as the Scandinavian countries! I guess I completely neglected its latitude throughout my planning…

…but the latitude indeed brought its own surprises! Approximately 10 minutes before 5 o’clock in the afternoon on Saturday, the sun was setting into the horizon. I was running towards the Daugava River to catch the final moments before the sun disappeared, racing with the orange globe. Alas, I lost. The sun sunk faster than I had anticipated, but wow, it was stunning.

Getting back on topic, Riga is not your typical popular European destination. By no means is it anything like Paris or Rome or Barcelona, and really, what did I know about it before visiting? Close to absolutely nothing, which was precisely why the visit was necessary to break out of the norm!

Reason 3: The Lat is the second (or third? or fourth?) highest-valued currency in the world. Take that, British pound!

1 Lat is approximately 1.43 Euros. It was funny when I first arrived in Europe and had to convert everything back to the Canadian dollar. Now that I’m completely used to the Euro, it was strange having to convert everything to Lats during the trip. Oh, that card in the middle, it’s an electronic bus ticket, 0.50 LVL.

Reason 4: They speak Latvian. It’s always fun to be in a place where you have absolutely no idea what anyone is saying.

Everyone should join a free walking tour during a visit to Riga or any of the Baltic States. Of course, it’s much more comfortable and preferable in the summer when your feet aren’t frozen! Here in red is our cute, energetic tour guide. Thankfully she spoke English!

Though, it is fun learning random words in different languages during travel. When you go around, you pick up words here and there. Latvian vocabulary of the week: iela = street, paldies = thank you, lidosta = airport. Simple as that!

Latvian vendor outside the central market, selling handmade Latvian crafts even in the unusually cold weather.

Reason 5: It’s fun to wander around the Old Town. Riga has a very lovely Old Town, a cute and colourful maze full of hidden surprises!

Getting lost and squeezing through the tiny streets in Vecrīga (Old Town) was certainly a lot of fun, even in the snow! You can play hide-and-seek with your friends here for hours, turning odd corners and finding random public squares all over the place. While you wander, stop to adore the charming architecture of the historic centre, painted with all sorts of bright colours, making all the buildings look like doll houses. Quite delightful!

Reason 6: Latvian cuisine is delicious. Not something I’d want to eat every single day, but unexpectedly delicious nonetheless!

So apparently Lido was the place to go for Latvian cuisine, and it was so good (and cheap) and there was such a diverse selection of food that I had lunch AND dinner there. Lunch consisted of cabbage roll with pork, some more pork with a buttery sauce, fried potatoes, and beer. I gotta say the beer wasn’t anything too out of the ordinary, but boy, the pork was amazing. That buttery sauce, whatever it was, was de-li-cious.

For dinner, I had fish with onion and cheese, a chicken (or pork) croquette, a glass of kefir and a glass of cranberry juice. Needless to say the fish and the croquette were irresistibly tasty, but I gotta comment on the kefir. It is some sort of “butter milk”, as explained by the waitress with limited English – you could probably tell by now that the Latvians like milk and butter with their food – and is apparently a common drink served with any meal in Latvia. I was warned that it could be too sour for a foreigner’s liking, but at 0.30 LVL per glass, there was no reason to not give it a try. Turned out it tasted just like your typical yoghurt, with a milkshake-like consistency, rather interesting, indeed.

Reason 7: Riga is a true winter wonderland in February. I have a legitimate excuse to look like an Eskimo in this weather.

The selected attire during the trip included: one pair of boots, two pairs of socks, three layers of pants, four layers of shirts/sweaters, two hats (I had another one on top of the gray one here), one pair of gloves, one coat, and one scarf. It was enough to keep me warm most of the time, although my hands and feet did freeze periodically and I did end up with ridiculously dry lips from which I am still recovering. I’m glad I was well-prepared with the hat though; I usually don’t wear hats, but it would have been a nightmare to have frozen ears!

Reason 8: No crowds anywhere during the winter. It’s a completely different experience from any high-season travelling!

Even the locals say that it’s an unusually cold winter, and most of them would rather stay in the warmth of their homes, not to mention travellers! There were few, however, who were as crazy as I was and chose to go for Riga during this time of the year. Go us! Shown above is the Freedom Monument that marks the independence and sovereignty of Latvia.

Reason 9: Snow. In the winter, Riga glistens in beauty in its bright, snowy gown.

To me, winter just isn’t winter without snow. And I’m not talking about snow that falls and melts right away, but the kind that STAYS! I was completely ready to dive into spring after a disappointing “winter” in December and January, but Riga brought back all the joys of winter within its glamour. The crisp sounds of boots in snow, the sparkling dazzle of the rooftops, the smell of dry, icy air as it shocks the nostrils…call me bizarre, but it made the journey all the more enjoyable.

Didn’t think I was gonna skip out on a view of the city from high above, did you? Here we are on top of St.Peter’s church in the Old Town, looking into the city of Riga.

Reason 10: The frozen Daugava River is just grand. Maybe you’ll see some ice fishing going on, if you’re lucky.

The sheer width of this river makes me doubt, once again, whether the Garonne in Bordeaux is as wide and grand as it is in my imagination. I can never seem to believe it. Anyway, the Daugava is completely frozen here, with the Stone Bridge connecting the east and the west banks. Anyone up for a skate on the ice?

This concludes my recount of the trip to Riga, Latvia. I haven’t written such a detailed post in awhile, and I hope you enjoyed my overview of this short weekend break. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to revisit the city in the summer, and perhaps add in the rest of the Baltic States too. Well, until next time!

Riga, Latvia…

Okay, so we’re in Riga. Friendly-uninterested stares as opposed to the friendly-curious ones in Estonia. Cheap, plentiful beer. Street violinists.

Amber jewelry. Playing foosball with two Frenchman and a German with an audience of Taiwanese. 4.90 lats for way too much food. Marrow and dill and tarragon, oh my! Alex the Canadian-German-Serbian. Two honeymooning gay couples. Balsam liqueur. Marcis with a “tz”. The 26th floor bar. Beer gardens. Street culture. Getting tipsy, then lost. Disgusting creamy marrow pancakes. Lidos. Expressive statue faces.

The Naughty Squirrel Hostel. Long coach ride. No border check. Bristolian in bar who loves Latvia but is being sent to Arizona by his job. Stalin’s last building. Freedom is 3 stars held by a woman in green.

Incomprehensibly long language. Twilight at midnight. Hearing “Layla” sung with a Latvian accent. A Scottish Latvian(I don’t get it either.) A Russian Estonian. Pink chicken–didn’t eat it. Brezel means pretzel–didn’t eat that either. Loving couples sitting at a fountain. Turning a corner and finding this…

Today’s title, by the way, comes from a rendition of the iconic Clapton tune that we heard   performed by Mitrokhin’s Master Band live in a beer garden in Riga…sadly their groovy rendition of Layla isn’t on their site, but plenty of other tunes are…check those out HERE.

Laimas pulkstenis (Riga)

From now on I’ll be posting up some of the curios things I have come across since I moved to Latvija almost two weeks ago. There are plenty of them, so I hope you get to know the country better through these lines.

I’ll be starting with something I found out in the capital Riga. Have you ever noticed that locals have a special or certain place where they meet up in city centre? It’s true, no matter where you are, just have a look around and get mixed with locals. I bet you will discover wonderful things!

Going back to the meeting point… Like many and many other cities, Riga has also this place where people meet up. Even if they do not know each other. Its name is Laimas pulkstenis – Laima’s watch – and it is located just in front of the Brīvības piemineklis - Freedom Monument.

Laimas pulkstenis - meeting point

Believe it or not, tourist guides do stop by the watch and tell the bunch of avid photographers that this place is where Latvians usually meet in old town. They nod, take some pictures and keep walking.

But there is also a story behind this watch and due to my thirst of curiosity I have asked around to find out more about it.

It is one of the most popular symbols in Riga and it was set up in 1924. It’s main purpose back then was to help Latvians to be on time for work. It took 12 more years for the Latvian chocolate factory Laima to put its name on it. The watch survived WWII and in 1999 the famous sweet company refurbished it in order to give the watch the same look it had back in 1936.

I set up some of my meetings in Riga there and I would recommend to anybody visiting Latvija to spend some time around it, for you can have a wonderful sight of some of the main monuments in the city.

Besides, the chances to be approach by someone randomly and be asked whether you are the very person they are waiting for are quite high. They could become your next friend, they could have an interesting story behind… You never know…

On a visit to the Latvian capital of Riga in May 2008 we had an educational ride in a taxi on the 4^th.

Kim made the first approach to the driver and asked if he could take some of us back to the city from an out of town restaurant  and to our surprise he indicated that he could take all five of us in his Renault Megane.  This was a vehicle that was clearly unsuitable for accommodating five passengers and probably not licensed to do so either!  Kim doubted this and just for clarification enquired a second time and clearly running short on patience he gave her his “why can’t this stupid woman understand look”, and immediately increased his carrying capacity to an absurdly optimistic eight!  Kim looked even more startled by this and even examined the interior of the car for concealed seats by sticking her head through the open window.  He responded by raising his eyeballs so far into the top of his head that if he’d had laser vision he would have fried his brains.  This was our cue to accept the five in a taxi invitation and we piled in.

Then the fun really started!  He immediately quizzed us about our national origins:

“Where are you from?” He enquired

 “England” said Micky

“London?”

This is a standard opening conversation with a European taxi driver that frequent travellers will be familiar with; the only place they really know in England is the capital, and sometimes Manchester, so they always make reference to it. 

“No, Lincolnshire” Micky informed him without managing to raise a flicker of recognition and immediately closing this topic of conversation.

“Do you know Tony Blair?”

“Well, not personally, no”

The scary driver went on to explain how from his personal perspective life was desperately unfair in Latvia.  From his explanation of conditions we discovered that he was a Russian living in Riga and by his own self-assessment suffering all sorts of discrimination (which is hardly surprising really when they (the Russians) had spent forty years or so kicking holy shit out of the place!)   His solution to the problem was the advocacy of a red revolution and I for one thought it sensible not to disagree too robustly.   He spoke with a thick Russian accent and had the unfortunate habit of preceding each statement with an unpleasant phlegmy hack that was half cough and half retch and definitely only half human.   

“Times are hard, it is very expensive to live in Riga”

“No way” said Micky “This place is very reasonable!”

This led to a few seconds of choking laughter and uncontrollable hacking by the driver and after a few more cost of living exchanges Micky did eventually concede that life was getting a bit tougher in the west;

“Yes,” he said “I have to agree, things are getting harder in England too, look at us, we used to have two wives each but now we can only afford one and a third to share between us!”

Actually Russians have had a bit of a hard time since independence because when Latvia broke free in 1991, it granted automatic citizenship to those who had lived in the first independent Latvian state, between 1918 and 1940, but not to those who immigrated here after the war, when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union.

Under Soviet rule during the Stalin years thousands were arrested and sent to Siberian labour camps, or executed. Later, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians flooded into the republic under a deliberate policy of Russification. The Latvian language was squeezed out of official use.  Latvians were resentful citizens of the USSR and by 1991 they comprised only half of the population of their own country, while in Riga only a third were Latvian.

Today Latvia is determined to revive the national identity. It says that its policy towards Russians who immigrated there during the Soviet period is aimed not at punishing them for the ‘crimes’ of the Soviet regime but at ensuring that they learn Latvian and integrate fully into society. In order to naturalise, Russians must take a test in Latvian, and pass an exam about Latvian history in which they must ‘correctly’ answer that the country was occupied and colonised, not liberated, by the Soviet Union in 1945.

These acts always spark controversy as anti-fascist groups (mainly ethnic Russians who live in the country) say they exalt fascism and discredits the Soviet Union’s sacrifices. Police usually flank the Freedom Monument, trying to make sure the commemorations pass without incidents.

Nevertheless, such celebrations have become a real problem for the Latvian government. Riga City Council had previously banned public gathering for the date, but earlier this week a Court ruled the right to free assembly, removing such prohibition.

HISTORY

Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, but then invaded by Nazi Germany in 1941. Many residents saw the Germans as sort of liberators and subsequently about 140,000 Latvians fought against Russians with the German military. Some 50,000 were killed.

It is believed a number of Latvian Waffen SS soldiers were involved in the murder of Jews.

The Red Army would take over the country again in 1944, remaining under the Soviet flag until 1991, when Latvia regained its independence.

*Note that the videos are not from this year’s commemorations

The official celebration at Brīvības Piemineklis | Freedom Monument took place this afternoon at 13:00. During evening people traditionally light candles at the Presidents castle. Below a couple of pictures from today’s events.

Troops from various army divisions ready for the parade. Rīga, 11.11.2009

Latvian president Valdis Zatlers addresses the crowd at Brivibas square. Rīga, 11.11.2009

Soldiers at the parade. Rīga, 11.11.2009

Latvians queuing up to put flowers at Brīvības Piemineklis | Freedom Monument. Rīga, 11.11.2009

Crowded evening at the President's Castle as thousands of Latvians put candles to commemorate 11.11.1919. Riga, 11.11.2009.

Wall of candles at the President's Palace. Riga, 11.11.2009.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!! It’s Catherine’s birthday!!

Feeling the need for a birthday breakfast, we ambled along in characteristic style through the streets of Old Riga and found nothing. Wanting a light bite, we settled on the ubiquitous Double Coffee, which can be found on every corner of the city. Think Starbucks but with garlic. Because yes, our little bulbous friend was to reappear, smeared all over our scrambled eggs. Foiled by the lack of bacon, we had been forced to order eggs with ‘weiners,’ which came with lashings of creamy garlic sauce cascading over a mountainous cone of scrambled egg. Curious.

The bustling normality of Double Coffee with its normal Latvian folk contrasted starkly with what we were presented with upon exiting. A barren, glistening expanse of ice seemed to lure us (yet none of the regulars) to its side. Seizing on this unique opportunity to skate around one of Riga’s cathedral squares, we ran to the booth to prime ourselves for the hour of our lives. For one mere Lat we had an hour of unbridled joy (boot hire included), and only had to share the enormous ice rink with one solitary skater.

Please allow us to dwell on this figure for a moment. With an entirely vacant rink to amuse himself in, this little madam decided to impress us by skating backwards at speed carving up as close to us as possible. It was like watching a Duracell powered dove, on ice, on rewind.* As he dazzled us with his technique he also took important calls on his mobile phone while his caramel-coloured combover flopped about in the wind.

Our skills alas were not as stupendous. Paddy was a… cautious skater, if you will, who chose to spend his hour of heaven clinging to the sides of the rink. His forays into the middle of the ice were brief, fraught with anxiety on behalf of those who watched him, but memorable. Martina, Catherine and Sarah were slightly more able, all with an individual style of their own. Martina – proficient and purposeful. Catherine – predictably at ease with the ice. Sarah – graceful and in her element.

Taking a few liberties with our ‘hour’ on the ice, we then paused to have a little chat with some (literally) wooden actors. Three chisled chaps were seated at a wooden table, and had been seemingly sat at this wooden table for years, with three invitingly empty seats at their tiny table. We paused for some photos then moved off on our merry way.

We carried on our sightseeing walk of Riga, straying into one of Riga’s central parks, Bastejkalns, where we admired the frozen river and small sculptures dotted around the park. One endearing curiosity was that one of the bridges across the river was covered in hundreds of padlocks of all shapes and sizes. Each padlock was engraved with the names of couples – little lockets of love forever shackled to the park.

We then passed the Freedom Monument, a tall column with Mother Latvia atop, which symbolises the country’s struggle for nationhood. Although the guidebook suggested closer inspection, we were less keen as the monument was guarded by several burly, machine-gun wielding policemen. Sarah’s guidebook had recommended a venture into the Art Nouveau district – one of Riga’s little gems. However, as we had spent almost three glorious days in Old Riga, the trip to the new bit of town was perhaps underwhelming.

It was now lightly snowing and Martina was chilly and anxious to get a warm drink somewhere. To our aid came the most amazing cake shop EVER. Four scrummy cakes and four drinks came to under 3.50 Lats, which felt ridiculous. The shop had a lovely local feel, with authentic types just an afternoon tea and cake. It was so good that Catherine and Martina, in a typical fashion, had seconds.

Next, we took our beloved Matt’s advice and headed to the Skyline Bar. Located on the 26th floor of the Reval Hotel Latvia, this bar gives astounding views over the whole city. The bar was accessed by a glass lift on the side of the building. Martina (who had only conquered a disabling fear of lifts only the year before) was alarmed by being able to see the lift’s inner workings and cables and thus for the journey up to the 26th floor, affected a quasi-foetal position, whilst suppressing a squeal for the duration of the ascent.

Upon reaching the 26th floor and subsequently confronted with a rather plush open plan bar, Catherine decided that her companions were not up to scratch, in regards to matching the dress code of the other drinkers. After reprimanding Sarah and commanding that she distance herself of the cagoule and pink flowery wellies, Catherine turned on her heel and marched solo into the bar. Sartorial comments aside, the bar was very impressive. Paddy and Sarah tried some of the local speciality – Riga Balsams – in a variety of cocktails. Balsams is a thick, brown liqueur, 45% proof made of 25 herbs, flowers, other secret ingredients and wormwood – the ingredient that gives absinthe its kick. On its own, it is a potent beverage but when mixed, is actually drinkable.

We stayed a little bit longer than we intended to (about five hours), and by the time we left at 10pm, we had our sights set on food. Piggy-backing back to an attractive looking beer cellar we’d seen the previous day, we became increasingly excited about a meal in an ambient, lively watering hole. Alas, it seemed we were the only people in the entire city who thought this might be an ambient spot as it was just us that chose to dine there. After a grumpy greeting from the burly waiter, we ordered beer and some grub. Paddy and Martina had meat pie, Catherine had ‘three types of meat’ and Sarah had some other type of meaty goodness. Although the food hit the spot, the cursory and sullen service did not, so we left an abysmal tip and absconded up the stairs and out. Alas, our escape was foiled when we became trapped in the restaurant, unable to open the door to exit. Embarrassingly, the staff had to come upstairs (after shutting down the restaurant for the night) to open the door for us. Whoops.

We trekked back to the hostel, realising that Monday also looked like a quiet night, with most bars shut up for the night. Devastatingly, Catherine also realised that she’d left her hat behind in the restaurant. This hat was one of a twin set of hats sported by Catherine and Martina and was on its inaugural outing on Catherine’s head. Now, it lay dormant on the floor of the restaurant. Suppose it acted as some form of tip.

We took the hostel’s advice and joined the Fun Franks Crew at Pulkvedis (nb reader – you may remember this is the club we visited on our first night in Riga). Monday was apparently reggae night and massive fans of the genre that we are, we were so overwhelmed with glee that we passed up the opportunity to dance and sat down at a big dark table. We then spent the rest of the evening drinking and playing with some flyers we found, sticking faces of Latvian models onto our foreheads. Casper the pirate also took the opportunity to rekindle his romancing of Martina, to no more luck. If reggae wasn’t enough, they were also playing the Val Kilmer film ‘Top Secret’ on the TVs with English subtitles. For those unfamiliar with the film, it is from the makers of Airplane!, but looks like soft porn, without the sex. It’s a low budget, low laughs classic. Highly recommended.

*This in fact was indicative of other aspects of Latvian life where we often pondered on whether we’d taken a stumble into a whole new dimension. A parallel land where everything was on rewinds – particularly cars that had a penchant for deftly driving backwards at speed.

(with Catherine Bolsover)

NOTE: Please click on images for full viewing

It was a simple and enjoyable trip, and now I get to tell you, briefly, about:

• The Livonian Order of Teutonic Knights of the Holy Roman Empire,
• the mineral amber,
• The Freedom Monument in Riga,
• Riga as the Largest city in Sweden,
• cable-stayed bridges,
• the Eastern Orthodox Nativity of Christ Cathedral, and
• the French Embassy in Riga, among other items including the demographics of current day Latvia.

Image Legend: The Livonian Confederation was a loosely organized confederation in present day Estonia and Latvia ruled by the Order of Teutonic Knights of Livonia and which existed from 1228 to the 1560s. It contained five small states: the Livonian Order, Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek, Archbishopric of Riga, Bishopric of Dorpat, and Bishopric of Courland.

In 1621 Riga and the outlying fortress of Daugavgriva came under the rule of Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, who intervened in the Thirty Years’ War not only for political and economic gain but also in favor of German Lutheran Protestantism. During the Russo-Swedish War, 1656-1658, Riga withstood a siege by Russians. Riga remained the largest city in Sweden until 1710 during a period in which the city retained a great deal of self-government autonomy. In that year, in the course of Great Northern War, Russia under Tsar Peter the Great invaded Riga. Sweden’s northern dominance ended, and Russia’s emergence as the strongest Northern power was formalized through the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Riga was annexed by Russia and became an industrialized port city of the Russian empire, where it remained until World War I. By 1900, Riga was the third largest city in Russia after Moscow and Saint Petersburg in terms of numbers of industrial workers. (SOURCE)

Image Legend: Swedish army bombarding the fortress of Dunamunde, a 17th-century etching. Daugavgrīva was a strong fortress commanding the mouth of the Daugava, hence its name. Since 1959, Daugavgrīva has been a district of Riga.

The Freedom Monument

The Freedom Monument is located on the eastern edge of “Old Town.” It honors soldiers killed during the Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920). It is an important symbol of the freedom, independence, and sovereignty of Latvia. Unveiled in 1935, the 42-metre (138 ft) high monument often serves as the focal point of public gatherings and official ceremonies in Riga. During World War II, Latvia was annexed by the Soviet Union. Soviet propaganda attempted to alter the symbolic meaning of the monument to better fit with Communist ideology, but it remained a symbol of national independence to the general public. On June 14, 1987 about 5,000 people gathered at the monument to commemorate the victims of the Soviet regime and to lay flowers. This rally renewed the national independence movement that culminating three years later in the re-establishment of Latvian sovereignty. (SOURCE)

Image Legend: Top of the Freedom Monument, a monolithic travertine column, topped by a copper figure of Liberty, in the form of a woman lifting three gilded stars, symbolizing the constitutional districts of Latvia: Vidzeme, Latgale and Courland.

Changing of the Guard at the base of the Monument (More pictures from my recent excursion may be seen here).

This memorial is so important to the people of Latvia that I will show more detail of it here (the inserted text is reproduced from the original source):

Main facets at the base: Four corners at the base: Large Panels: Here is the monument in its entirety (please click on the image for more detail):

And now for something a little different: AMBER

Dzintars is the Latvian word for amber. Latvian choral music is brought to audiences abroad by the Dzintars Choir, and dance is presented by the children’s dance ensemble Dzintariņš. The name of Latvia’s perfumery company is Dzintars; Latvians love to put Dzintars cheese spread on their bread at breakfast. Latvians all have somebody called Dzintars or Dzintra among their friends; the name is common among those who live at the shore of Dzintara jūra, the Amber Sea. There are many Latvian songs about amber and the sea that nurtures it. What is this sun-stone caressed by the currents of the Baltic Sea? (SOURCE)

Amber is formed, in its first stage, from resin that oozes from resinous trees. In the second stage, the resin rests up in the soil of an “amber forest”. In the dry, well-aerated sandy soil physical and chemical changes take place in the resin through the action of oxygen. The resin becomes harder and more durable. In the third stage, the resin-bearing deposits are washed out, transported and redeposited in a water-body. Amber is formed when the resin is washed by water rich in oxygen and alkaline sodium compounds. The action of these lead to the formation of succinic acid and its salts. Amber that has been excavated or washed up changes under the influence of oxygen, so unlike the inorganic minerals, amber is unstable and changeable.

In distant antiquity, the people living along the shore of the Baltic Sea not only collected amber for trade, but also made practical use of it as a decorative, curative and religious material. In the territory of present-day Latvia and Lithuania amber processing began in the 4th millennium BC. Amber was widely used as a magical material with curative properties and as a component of religious rituals among the neighboring ancient Slavic peoples in Kievan Rus and Poland. The source of local amber is on the seashore, and part of it is under the sea. The prevailing marine current transports lumps of amber from these sources, to be washed up on the shore of Lithuania and Latvia.

There are amber sellers everywhere in old town, in street stalls and shops, some of the latter more like fine jewelry stores.

The Nativity of Christ Cathedral

The Nativity of Christ Cathedral was built in a Neo-Byzantine style between 1876 and 1883, during the period when the country was part of the Russian Empire. It is the largest Orthodox cathedral in the Baltic provinces built with a blessing of the Russian Tsar Alexander II. The Cathedral is renown for its icons. During the First World War German troops occupied Riga and turned the cathedral into a Lutheran church. In independent Latvia the Nativity of Christ Cathedral once again became an Orthodox cathedral in 1921, although the new government tried to force the change of the liturgy language into Latvian. In the early 1960s Soviet authorities closed down the cathedral and converted its building into a planetarium. The cathedral was restored after Latvia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. (SOURCE)

The Cable Bridge (Latvian: Vanšu tilts) in Riga

A cable-stayed bridge consists of one or more columns (towers or pylons), with cables supporting the bridge deck. The cable-stay design is the optimum bridge for a span length between that of cantilever bridges and suspension bridges. Key advantages of the cable-stayed form:

• Much greater stiffness than the suspension bridge, so that deformations of the deck under live loads are reduced
• Can be constructed by cantilevering out from the tower – the cables act both as temporary and permanent supports to the bridge deck
• For a symmetrical bridge (i.e. spans on either side of the tower are the same), the horizontal forces balance and large ground anchorages are not requiredEmbassy of France in Latvia

  The tour bus passed by the French Embassy and, after we de-bused in Old Town, we returned to admire the exterior of building at more leisure, along with the nearby Freedom Monument and Orthodox Cathedral.

  
  As the Regina Baltica passed through the portion of the Daugava River leading from the Gulf of Riga to the City, I noticed very little activity in the many industrial installations and, indeed, some were falling into disrepair. There was at least one modern-looking operation that had a lot of activity. In looking at the current demographic statistics of Latvia, I discerned a reason for this: the economy is now mostly in the service sector.

  From the most recent information provided by the CIA World Factbook: Latvia’s economy experienced GDP growth of more than 10% per year during 2006-07. The majority of companies, banks, and real estate have been privatized, although the state still holds sizable stakes in a few large enterprises. Latvia officially joined the World Trade Organization in February 1999. EU membership, a top foreign policy goal, came in May 2004.

  Gross Domestic Product by sector:
  agriculture: 3.3%……….industry: 22%……….services: 74.7%

  Labor force, by occupation:
  agriculture: 13%………..industry: 19%………..services: 68%

  Here is a major excerpt from the CIA World Factbook to round out this look at the renewing country of Latvia:

  The name “Latvia” originates from the ancient Latgalians, one of four eastern Baltic tribes that formed the ethnic core of the Latvian people (ca. 8th-12th centuries A.D.). The region subsequently came under the control of Germans, Poles, Swedes, and finally, Russians. A Latvian republic emerged following World War I, but it was annexed by the USSR in 1940 – an action never recognized by the US and many other countries. Latvia reestablished its independence in 1991 following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Although the last Russian troops left in 1994, the status of the Russian minority (some 30% of the population) remains of concern to Moscow. Latvia joined both NATO and the EU in the spring of 2004.

  Area: total: 64,589 sq km; land: 63,589 sq km; water: 1,000 sq km
  Border countries: Belarus 141 km, Estonia 343 km, Lithuania 588 km, Russia 276 km
  Coastline: 498 km
  Climate: maritime; wet, moderate winters
  Terrain: low plain

  Elevation extremes: lowest point: Baltic Sea 0 m; highest point: Galzina Kalns 312 m
  Natural resources: peat, limestone, dolomite, amber, hydropower, wood, arable land
  Land use: arable land: 28.19%; permanent crops: 0.45%; other: 71.36% (2005)
  Irrigated land: 200 sq km. note: land in Latvia is often too wet, and in need of drainage, not irrigation; approximately 16,000 sq km or 85% of agricultural land has been improved by drainage (2003)

  Environment current issues: Latvia’s environment has benefited from a shift to service industries after the country regained independence; the main environmental priorities are improvement of drinking water quality and sewage system, household, and hazardous waste management, as well as reduction of air pollution; in 2001, Latvia closed the EU accession negotiation chapter on environment committing to full enforcement of EU environmental directives by 2010

  Population: 2,245,423 (July 2008 est.)
  Age structure: 0-14 years: 13.4% (male 154,077/female 146,825)
  15-64 years: 69.7% (male 760,976/female 803,106)
  65 years and over: 16.9% (male 124,658/female 255,781) (2008 est.)

  Median age: total: 39.9 years; male: 36.9 years; female: 43 years (2008 est.)

  Population growth rate: -0.629% (2008 est.)
  Birth rate: 9.62 births/1,000 population (2008 est.)
  Death rate: 13.63 deaths/1,000 population (2008 est.)
  Net migration rate: -2.29 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2008 est.)
  Sex ratio: at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female; under 15 years: 1.05 male(s)/female; 15-64 years: 0.95 male(s)/female; 65 years and over: 0.49 male(s)/female; total population: 0.86 male(s)/female (2008 est.)

  Infant mortality rate: total: 8.96 deaths/1,000 live births; male: 10.85 deaths/1,000 live births; female: 6.97 deaths/1,000 live births (2008 est.)
  Life expectancy at birth: total population: 71.88 years; male: 66.68 years; female: 77.35 years (2008 est.)
  Total fertility rate: 1.29 children born/woman (2008 est.)

  Ethnic groups: Latvian 57.7%, Russian 29.6%, Belarusian 4.1%, Ukrainian 2.7%, Polish 2.5%, Lithuanian 1.4%, other 2% (2002)

  Religions: Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Russian Orthodox
  Languages: Latvian (official) 58.2%, Russian 37.5%, Lithuanian and other 4.3% (2000 census)

  —————-

  The demographic that seems most troublesome is the decline in population due both to out-migration and low birth rate. The out-migration could possibly be due to ethnic Russians leaving the country, but this is a guess. On the other hand, to replace the population, and assuming no net increase or decrease due to migration, the annual fertility rate should be 2.1 or more children born per woman, on the average. It is now only 1.29.

  

  It was a good trip. Eva and I recommend it to you.

In March 2008, the outspoken Dutch politician Geert Wilders released his short film, entitled “Fitna” onto the Internet. The piece is a savage critique of fundamentalist Islam, and purports that the religion as a whole has an intrinsically bellicose nature.

Wilders supports this suggestion with a selection of warlike quotes from the Koran, such as:

“They but wish that ye should reject faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing as they, so take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah. But if they turn renegades, seize them and kill them wherever ye find them, and take no friends or helpers from their ranks.”

In order to indicate a link between these modern-day atrocities and the age-old texts, he shows us images of 9/11, the Madrid and London bombings and footage of the beheading of hostage Eugene Armstrong. We see clips of various extremist Islamic preachers, proclaiming in no uncertain terms that it is the Muslim’s duty to terminate any non-believers with extreme prejudice; “Annihilate the infidels and the polytheists”, “Allah is happy when non-Muslims get killed”, etc.

Wilders’ film ends with a written postscript:

“It is not up to me, but up to Moslems themselves to tear out the hateful verses from the Koran. Muslims want you to make way for Islam, but Islam does not make way for you. The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you. Islam wants to rule, submit, and seeks to destroy our Western civilization. In 1945, Nazism was defeated in Europe. In 1989, Communism was defeated in Europe. Now, the Islamic ideology has to be defeated.”

The International community was acutely aware of the film’s prospective impact, even before it was released. When a video alleged to be a trailer for the short film was put on YouTube, Pakistan blocked the site from being accessed across the entire country. This actually resulted in the site going offline around the world for two hours.

When the film became available on the Internet, tensions grew. Political condemnation was worldwide and virtually unanimous. Public protests took place in Dam Square, Amsterdam. On the 7th of April, Indonesia blocked and continues to block YouTube because of its refusal to remove Fitna from its servers. Muslim nations have invariably threatened, at the very least, a review of their diplomatic relations with the Netherlands.

And a Fatwa has been put out on the life of Wilders himself. This is no empty threat; another Dutch filmmaker, Theo Vah Gogh (a descendant of Vincent’s family) was murdered after he made a film entitled “Submission”, about the physical and mental abuse that women often suffer in Islamic societies. The film was well received by some, but caused an uproar in Muslim communities.

As a result, on November 2nd 2004, a Muslim extremist named Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh in Amsterdam as he cycled to work. Bouyeri shot Van Gogh eight times, slashed his throat (almost to the point of decapitation) and stabbed him in the chest. He also left a note pinned to the body, threatening jihad against Jews and Western governments. That was the climate in which Wilders made his own, arguably more controversial film.

Considering the circumstances, it seems very difficult for any non-religious person to side with Wilders’ film. Certainly, yes, it only presents one side of the story, but regardless of the film, the evidence seems highly stacked in favour of his argument. Fitna‘s featured preachers unequivocally desire conflict against the kuffars (non-believers) and believe that Islam can and should be the world’s sole religion.

The problem is that religious intolerance is considered such an awful taboo, such anathema to the mores of Western civilization, that it allows hate speech, indoctrination and mob mentality to exist untouched as long as it poses as the free expression of religious tenets. This allows aspects of fundamentalism to insinuate themselves into mainstream culture.

Islam is just one example of this phenomenon; Christian fundamentalism is rife in the USA; children are sent to camps to learn total submission to antiquated Catholic values. They speak in glossolalia and shed tears of joy, believing themselves to be conduits of the good Lord’s will. Of course, this all has practical uses, it creates an army of non-questioning youths who disdain abortion, divorce, sex before marriage etc; and who support totally the actions of a Christian president who wants to spread democracy overseas.

(Indeed, there’s been a lot of controversy recently about Barack Obama’s preacher, Jeremiah Wright, mainly because he has stated that 9/11 was a direct result of US’ interference with Middle Eastern nations. The very idea that America may have actually been partially responsible for the attacks that day is abhorrent to good American Christians, so they call the man a “traitor”.)

I don’t think that any religion is immune to this phenomenon (except possibly Buddhism, which embraces the questioning of even its most sacred beliefs), and Islam tends to enforce its rules with particular brutality. And it does so at the expense of countries that allow it to flourish. Indeed, the tremendous hypocrisy is that it abuses the open laws of countries that allow people of varying religions to settle there. They are allowed to practice their religions unmolested, and then preach hatred against the openness of the very cultures that allow them the freedoms of speech to do so in the first place.

I’m aware that it’s quite difficult to make this argument without getting into countrified “Not In My Back Yard” moralities. But there is a line. For example, the Latvian government recently jailed an Englishman for urinating on the Freedom Monument in Riga. The Freedom Monument is a tribute to those who fought and died in the Latvian War of Independence, and some drunken guy taking a piss on it was a terrible insult to the Latvian people. The Latvian foreign minister called the English “pigs” and threw the man in jail. And there was no international condemnation of the action.

On the other hand, when an English teacher in the Sudan allowed a class to name a teddy bear “Mohammad”, she was convicted of “insulting religion, inciting hatred and showing contempt for religious beliefs” by Islamic authorities. She was sentenced to 15 days in jail and was deported upon release. Not only that, but

“…approximately 400 protesters took to the streets, some of them waving swords and machetes, demanding Gibbons’s execution after imams denounced her during Friday prayers. During the march, chants of “Shame, shame on the UK”, “No tolerance – execution” and “Kill her, kill her by firing squad” were heard. Witnesses reported that government employees were involved in inciting the protests.” Wikipedia

Wanting to end someone’s life because of the name they gave a teddy bear suggests something more to me than simple religious offence. I think that many people, and certainly those who subscribe to the fundamentalist aspects of any religion, are assuming a personality type; the kind that tends towards the total abdication of individual responsibility.

True responsibility is an imposing prospect. It involves a lot of work. It involves searching the Gods, quite literally, for the meaning of life. It involves the realization that everyone else’s actions make just as much sense to them as yours do to you. It involves the admission that you, and you alone, are responsible for your actions; if you insult your friend, beat your wife, kill someone, it’s because you chose to do it, not because some ancient text gave you permission. It’s liberating, but it also deletes a huge portion of one’s ego and cuts you adrift from the woolly cotton braids of what at least purports to be “tradition”.

In that sense, it’s interesting that the word Islam actually means “submission”. Because that’s what fundamentalism demands. And it’s attractive. It entices so many because it offers the promise of an easier life. It offers a psychological return to the womb, where some all-powerful entity will provide you with all you need to survive; you don’t need to make any decisions for yourself, because everything has been already decided for you.

The problem with that, though, is that when these people see others taking responsibility for their lives, exploring the wonders and limits of existence, it drives them hog-wild. It wounds them so deeply because in their heart of hearts, they know that they are missing out. If there is any spark of human curiosity left in them, it flares up and reminds them that they have cravenly abandoned their duties. It’s like ol’ Fred Nietszche says; “Fear is the mother of morality”.

It seems similar, to me at least, to the actions of the classic sociopath. This person indulges in anti-social behaviour, but, when confronted with the the truth (or any criticism whatsoever) of their actions, reacts with furious disdain. It’s similar to a child who has been caught lying, but who continues lying to maintain their innocence. They know they’re in the wrong, and the only way they can react is with anger, tears and even violence.

Fortunately for religious zealots, this anger, these tears and violence can be channeled through the untouchable medium of religious outrage. Claiming insult of one’s theistic persuasion is thus used as the basis to lash out at others for any and all of man’s frailties; sexual frustration, mortality, depression, fear. All of this encourages a regression to tribalism – mob mentalities that rail against centuries of progress in racial integration. The non-believers are less worthy than believers, and that’s non-negotiable.

To reiterate, this is certainly not confined to Islam. And like other religions, Islam has an introspective, mystic tradition that encourages reflection, non-violence and self-discovery (Sufism). Christianity had a similar tradition, known as Gnosticism. In fact, it could be argued that religion regularly seems to reflect different personalities, or at least, personalities at different levels of maturity. People are drawn to whatever aspects of  their religion that tend to echo their own beliefs and experiences. If you desire peace and love, both Christianity and Islam can be argued to justify that. If you want violence and bloodshed, both can be argued to justify that, too.

(I wonder if so many of these old religious texts, written in such vague aphorisms, are actually meant to be gauges of man’s maturity as a civilization. Since they seem to be textual Rorschach tests, people tend to draw from them what they will; love, hatred, peace, violence, whatever.)

But what if the believers in violence and bloodshed start to encroach on the progress of peace? Well, that’s the heart of the problem; the cultures that have embraced racial and religious integration are slow to do anything for fear of violating their own democratic ideals. In doing so, they may allow hate speech to flow and the warlike traits of the collective psyche to grow.

I recently came across a proverb that went something like this:

“The problem with the world is that wise people are open-minded and unsure, but the foolish are absolutely certain.”

I think that sums it up. The heads of our democracies must be wary of and penalize those who would preach racism, insularity and violence. Doing so does not violate the tenets of democracy, it encourages them.

As I have argued, religion tends to reflect aspects of the individual personality. In the same way that the most peaceful person may sometimes feel a jolt of fury or jealousy, they must dispel these feelings instead of letting them fester and grow. But that involves a personal decision and personal action.

And it’s action that must be taken; otherwise, the fears and tribalisms can take hold from within and undo so much of the progress of personal and social evolution. Although a world of total peace and integration would be wonderful, we haven’t reached it yet. And if the road to it is left unpoliced, we never will.

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Further Viewing:

Geert Wilders’ “Fitna”

Channel 4 Dispatches: Undercover Mosque

Documentary featuring undercover investigation into the influence of religious extremism throughout the UK.