We had a short drive to the beach resort of Jurmala and when we arrived we had another tour reorganisation discussion that convinced me to finally dispose of my useless personal itinerary.  This was really beginning to irritate people so I was pleased when it was all sorted out to everyone’s satisfaction and we were allowed to get off the coach and head for the beach. 

 This was a real surprise for this was a very high quality beach with miles of scrupulously clean sand and a clear Baltic Sea stretching out towards Sweden over the horizon.  I had expected the sea to be grey and forbidding like the North Sea of my childhood holidays but instead it was a serene denim blue with a fringe of seal grey sand and it looked genuinely inviting.  Under the Communist regime up until 1991 this was a popular destination for high-level Communist Party officials and it was a favourite destination of Russian Presidents Brezhnev and Khrushchev. 

There were a few holidaymakers on the beach but not many in the sea because I suspect that looks were deceptive and that the Baltic remains fairly inhospitable for most of the year.  I wasn’t prepared to take the testicle shrinking test to find out.

We came dangerously close to another incident when we found a beach bar to stop for a drink and Alona helpfully gave menu interpretation assistance.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I am reasonably proficient in ordering a lager from a menu in almost any language in the World and there really wasn’t any difficulty at all here in translating from the Latvian ‘beer’ to English ‘beer’.  Kim however interpreted the offer of help as down right interference and I think Alona came within a whisker of finding the menu deposited somewhere that the sun doesn’t shine! 

After the beach we separated and half the party returned to Riga and the others went to a Spa resort at a hotel and enjoyed the saunas and steam rooms, the swimming pools and Jacuzzis.  I choose the Spa resort and enjoyed a session in each of the attractions including an especially memorable fifteen minutes in the sauna with  Alona and another fifteen minutes in the Jacuzzi with  May while the others went off to enjoy a massage.

Tonight we had agreed to eat at the Maritim and when we arrived the others were waiting for us in the lobby of the hotel.  At the bar there were some misbehaving Brit-louts who had been drinking heavily and were rearranging the furniture in the bar so we declined to join them in there and had a drink in the lobby instead.  Eventually Nick joined us, looking pretty rough it has to be said, he clearly hadn’t recovered completely and he rejected the offer of a beer.  I have no idea exactly how much he had had to drink the night before but it certainly resulted in the loss of a whole day of his holiday so it must have been a considerable amount. 

The restaurant was on the top floor but it was quite a challenge to get there using a lift that absolutely refused to cooperate with our instructions; we pushed the buttons but found ourselves going up and down like an out of control yo-yo with frequent stops at floors we hadn’t requested and a couple of return visits to the lobby.  We laughed ourselves silly and were about to give in when it stopped one floor below the restaurant and we decided that this was probably the best we could hope for and so took the stairs for the final part of the way.

The restaurant was nice but it was posh and I wasn’t really in the mood for posh.  Or the posh prices either I have to confess!  By Riga standards this was very pricey indeed so when Kim, after heavy prompting from me, decided that she didn’t fancy it either and left I let my mean streak take over completely and was quick to follow her example.  We took a taxi into the old town and went instead to our favourite from our previous visit, the Lido pub where we had beer and wine and copious amounts of food at the sort of prices that we prefer.

We finished the evening in the top floor bar at the Albert, which on account of it being Friday was busier tonight.  There were two burly bouncers at the door whose main task seemed to be to supervise the activities of the prostitutes.  There were a lot of dubious looking women about looking for customers and there was a continual flow of what we took to be hookers going up and down in the lifts to the bedrooms below. 

There was a lot of ‘fucky fucky’ at the Hotel Albert tonight that was for sure!

Fotogrāfijas autors: Fotogrāfs Edgars Pohevičs www.edgarsfoto.lv

Photo by photographer Edgars Pohevičs www.edgarsfoto.lv

Jag låter bilden tala för sig själv ^^

Jūrmala ir Latvijas lielākā kūrortpilsēta. Atrodas Vidzemē un ir apmēram 25 kilometrus uz rietumiem no Rīgas. Pilsētas platība ir simts kvadrātkilometri.

Kādi ir pakalpojumi jūrmalā? Daudz un dažādi.. Piemēram vērtīgs rakts par interneta pieslēgumu ir šeit: Interneta pieslēgums Jūrmalā, kā arī daudzko citu var atrast meklējot googlē.

Starpcitu šogad Jūrmala svin pusgadsimta jubileju, kopš ieguvusi pilsētas tiesības. Neskatoties uz to, ka pēdējos gados vairāk tiek runāts par nekārtībām pilsētas domē, bet mazāk par Jūrmalu,  kas laiku pa laikam jāaplūko ne tikai Latvijas iedzīvotājiem, bet arī ārvalstu tūristiem. Kā piemēram nesen notikušajā Jaunajā vilnī Dima rādīja savas valodas prasmes, bet tas jau atkal ir cits stāsts.

Lai nebūtu pliks raksts, gribēju jums parādīt Jūrmalas ģērboni. Jūrmalas  ģerbonis sastāv no vairoga, uz kura attēlota jūra ar piecām viļņu galotnēm, kaiju un trīs zvaigznēm. Vairogs dalīts pēdā ar viļņu griezumu: zils un sudrabs. Augšējā laukumā uz labo pusi lidojoša sudraba kaija, virs tās trīs zelta piecstaru zvaigznes…

Atgriežoties pie pakalpojumiem… Man nesen draugs prasīja kā ir ar internetu Jūrmalā. Es teiktu neslikti, jo ātrums un kvalitāte ir pieejama augsta. Cik dzirdēju drīzumā arī tiks vilkts ātrākais internets Latvijā – Optiskais internets. Bet par to visu sīkā var lasīt rakstā: internets jūrmalā. Tas arī īsumā viss noteikti drīzumā vēl pacelsim šo brīnišķīgo pilsēteli…

Divi lati par iebraukšanu – paredzētā iebraukšanas maksa Jūrmalā no nākamā gada, pa ko paziņojis pilsētas mērs Raimons Munkevics.

Par 2 Ls var aizbraukt uz Siguldu, labi viegli paēst (atkarīgs no daudziem faktoriem), var pat piknika soliņu un daudzas citas lietas.

Man šī maksa šķiet pilnīgi nepieņemama un pārmērīga. Jūrmalnieki deldē gan Rīgas, gan citu asfaltu, brauc pār mūsu tiltiem un nemaksā par ielu apgaismojumu, bet grib, lai iebraucēji ieripina pilsētas budžetā divas monētas sudraba krāsā.

Vairāk bildes no šīs foto sesijas var apskatīt manā mājas lapā.

Iesaki citiem:

Tā kā vakar laika ziņās teica, ka būšot vētra līdz pat 30m/s, tad nu ņēmu savu foto aparātu rokās un braucu uz Karostu skatīties. Man vienmēr ir paticis šāds laiks un paticis skatīties uz dabas varenumu. Aizbraucot līdz jūrai gan nesagaidīju solītos 30m/s, bet ko paskatīt tik un tā bija. Šeit arī dažas bildes no tā ko redzēju.

Iesaki citiem

Pēdējās pāris nedēļās daudzi autobraucēji gandrīz ķēra trieku, kad viņuprāt ceļu policija ar radaru viņus tvarstīja vietās, kur iespējams pirms tam nekad nav pat manīta.

foto no Kleistu ielas:

Šķietamo reidu vietas katru dienu atšķīrās – Jūrmalā Rīgas un Viestura ielas krustojums, Rīgā Buļļu un Kliņģeru ielas krustojums un Kurzemes prospekta krustojumi ar Jūrmalas gatvi, Slokas ielu un Kleistu ielu.  Reidi izpaudās tā, ka ceļa malā novietotā automašīnā sēž divi zaļās vestēs ietērpti  vīri, no kuriem viens kautko visu laiku pieraksta, kamēr otrs ik pa brīdim izstieptā rokā tur radaram līdzīgu priekšmetu un tēmē uz garāmbraucošajām automašīnām. Lieki piebilst, ka ātrumu pārkāpa daudzi, nemaz nerunājot par vienvirziena ielas šķērsošanu pretējā virzienā (kKiņģeru iela) un sarkanās luksofora gaismas neievērošanu. Cik daudzi tika aizturēti, brīdināti, sodīti? Neviens!

Un tagad seko mana atvainošanās tiem autobraucējiem, kas nedraudzējas ar acīm un galvu, un manī vai pārējos kolēģos saskatīja bargos ceļu policistus ar radaru rokās. Patiesībā mēs vaicām autotransporta plūsmas mērīšanu/skaitīšanu Ziemeļu šķērsojuma Rīgā projektēšanas vajadzībām. Zaļās, atstarojošās vestes bija nepieciešamas pašu drošībai, bet radars ir vienkāršs termoss, kas palīdzēja izvilkt garo dienu ar kādu karstu dzērienu vai rolltonu.

Tomēr mani secinājumi par ceļu satiksmes noteikumu ievērošanu ir dramatiski. Bija reizes, kad acu priekšā varēja notikt liela nelaime – avārijas kas pārvērstu dažu cilvēku dzīvi. Sākot ar milzīgām baļķu vedēju fūrēm, kas nesās pa pilsētu uz vismaz 70km/h un tādā ātrumā arī mierīgi pārlido pāri skaidri saskatāmai sarkanajai gaismai un beidzot ar psihiem gājējiem, kas mierīgā gaitā šķērso ielu neatļautā vietā lielas satiksmes intensitātes apstākļos.

Vislielāko prieku pašiem protams sagādāja autovadītāju šokētās sejas,  straujā bremzēšana pirms “posteņa” un lūrēšana mūsu virzienā.  Savu artavu  atļautā ātruma ievērošanā Rīgā nu esam snieguši.

Internets Jūrmalā un Jūrmalas slimnīcas apmeklētāju vestibilā uzstādīts interneta bankas stends, kas paredzēts pacientu ērtībām pakalpojumu apmaksai internetā. Sekojot Latvijas banku pieredzei, slimnīca ir ieviesusi inovatīvu risinājumu medicīnas sfērā.

Vēl kaut kas par jūrmalu: Interneta pieslēgums Jūrmalā un tās apkārtnē.Man jau ļoti patika!

Un tālāk:

„Neskatoties uz pašreizējiem inflācijas rādītājiem, ir vērojama nepārtraukta uzņēmumu attīstība un izaugsme, un tādi paši rādītāji attiecināmi arī uz klientu, mūsu gadījumā- pacientu prasībām. Jūrmalas slimnīca vienmēr ir centusies nodrošināt pacientiem nepieciešamos apstākļus labvēlīgas ārstniecības vides radīšanai,” inovācijas ieviešanu skaidro SIA „Jūrmalas slimnīca” valdes priekšsēdētājs Egons Liepiņš.

Papildus norēķinu sistēmas ieviešana ļaus sadalīt pacientu plūsmu, kas apmaksu par pakalpojumiem veic kasē un kas izvēlas savas interneta bankas starpniecību. Interneta banka paredzēta klientu, kuri lieto interneta banku, ikdienas lietošanai.

Pieejamas ir visu Latvijā esošo, kā arī dažu ārvalstu banku mājas lapas. „Iespējams, esam pirmā medicīnas iestāde, kas piedāvā šādu pakalpojumu. Tomēr dzīvojam modernā laikmetā, un iespēja norēķināties par slimnīcas pakalpojumiem ar interneta starpniecību drīzāk uzskatāma par nepieciešamību,” uzsver E.Liepiņš.

Vēsta: jurmalasslimnica.lv

Fotogrāfijas autors: Fotogrāfs Edgars Pohevičs www.edgarsfoto.lv

Photo by photographer Edgars Pohevičs www.edgarsfoto.lv

Jūrmala is the largest beach resort in the Baltic States and is famous for its natural treasures, the mild climate, sea, healthy air, curative mud and mineral water.

The first time that we saw Jūrmala beach was in June 2006 and it was a real surprise for this was a very high quality beach with thirty-three kilometres of scrupulously clean white sand, a blue flag beach and a clear Baltic Sea stretching out over the Gulf of Riga towards Sweden somewhere over the horizon.  I had expected the sea to be grey and forbidding like the North Sea of my childhood holidays but instead it was a serene denim blue and looked genuinely inviting.  There were a few holidaymakers on the beach but not many in the sea because I suspect that looks were probably deceptive and that the Baltic probably remains fairly inhospitable for most of the year and despite the warm sunshine I wasn’t prepared to find out because to be honest I am more used to swimming in the warm Mediterranean and would almost certainly have to toughen up a bit if I was going to tackle the testicle-shrivelling temperatures of the Baltic.

Jūrmala has been a  popular retreat as far back as the eighteenth Century when it became  a favoured recuperation point for Russian soldiers recovering from service during the Napoleonic Wars.  For over two hundred years after that Jūrmala has been Riga’s playground, especially in the elegant days of the 1930s right through to the years of Russian occupation.  During this time the city was the ultimate destination for holidaymakers from the east and countless tourists from across Russia descended on this small peninsula all the way from from Lielupe to Vaivari every Summer. Under the Communist regime this was a popular destination for high-level Party officials and it was a particular favourite destination of Russian Presidents Brezhnev and Khrushchev.  Today, as Latvia rejects most things Russian, most of the Soviet flavour has faded and the hotels, shops and restaurants have become more recognisably western. 

Most visitors to Jūrmala are from Latvia and they form 32% from the total number of tourists.  Lithuanians and Estonians are next, each with 13% from the total number of visitors and the number of Russian tourists is increasing again at 10% of the total, Finland with 7% and Germany with 5% come next.  Visitors from the UK make up only 1% from the total number of tourists which is lucky for them really because that means no football shirts, chavs or misbehaving louts on stag weekends who happily seem content to stay in nearby Riga.

We returned to the beach in January 2007 on a gloriously sunny morning, with snow on the ground and walked there through some wooden romantic houses built in a variety of styles and most in various states of disrepair and renovation.  Since the first half of the nineteenth century, the popularity of classical architecture made Jūrmala what it is and there are buildings in the styles of historism, Art Noveau, national romantism, and functionalism. But whatever the style the characteristic feature of Jūrmala’s architecture is that it is rich in decorations of wooden carvings on the facades and roofs of the buildings.  The houses were fascinating, mostly made of timber and in contrasting styles that suggested that the owners had had fun building them in a competitive contest each determined to eclipse the efforts of their neighbours.  These were once grand seaside villas accommodating the wealthy Russians who came here for their summer holidays and I was relieved to see that thankfully many were being restored, rather than being demolished to make way for modern structures.  It is an interesting fact that the town has an official list of four hundred and fourteen historical buildings under protection, as well as three thousand five hundred wooden structures.

The first time we had seen Jurmala beach was in the June sunshine when it was a wide expanse of inviting sand and gentle seashore so this time we were amazed to find it covered in ice and snow.   I had been told stories of a freezing sea but I don’t think I was completely convinced so to see this was awesome.  The sea had frozen at high tide and formed into natural ice sculptures well over a metre deep and topped with an inch or two of undisturbed snow.  We clambered over the ice to the sea line and found the sand was frozen solid too, I imagine the sea was cold but of course no one was brave enough (or insane enough) to try it.  I had never seen a beach frozen solid before and certainly had never walked on water before either.

This time there was no snow or frozen sea and the beach was strangely warm and hospitable and a digital information sign advised us that the temperature was 10º c.  Walking along the pine fringed beach we passed the fine old swimming baths building that were built in 1916 and where it was previously possible to take a bath in the heated seawater.  In Soviet times, it served as the resort spa centre and was a medical institution with the best facilities in the town.  Today however it was closed for business and looked neglected and quite sad.  Nearby was a sculpture of a turtle that represents long life that had been impossible to photograph on the summer visit but much easier today on account of the absence of people. 

Micky decided that this was a good opportunity to test the waterproof qualities of his £250 Dubarry boots and he swaggered out to sea in a confident manner and was able to confirm that his calf length, waterproof, breathable boot crafted from choice crushed water resistant leathers and lined with gore-tex was an excellent purchase that kept his feet both warm and dry.  I decided not to test my £20 boots from Springfield’s outlet shopping centre because I had the awful feeling that these wouldn’t be quite so waterproof.

After the beach we walked along Jomas iela, which is one of the central and oldest streets of Jūrmala with restaurants, summer terraces, hotels and cafés and here we found a bar that was grateful for mid-March customers and we enjoyed a bowl of spicy Russian Solanka soup and a glass of Latvian beer.

Just as we had arrived, we left Majori by train and headed east back to Riga and on the journey passed by the Lielupe River, which is a beautiful waterway that flows all the way from Lithuania to the south to drain in the Gulf of Riga and runs parallel with Jūrmala beach, sandwiching the resort between river and sea and creating a marvellous natural panorama that was magnificent even through the grubby windows of the train.

Not one of the World’s great train journeys.

We have been to Jūrmala both by mini-bus and by taxi before but this time we decided to travel by train.  Thankfully this only involved a journey of about thirty minutes or so because take it from me; this was not the Orient Express and certainly not one of the great railway journeys of the world.

Latvia’s national railway company is Latvijas Dzelzceļš but the development of the Latvian railways since independence in 1991 has not been a great priority for the Government and due to lack of investment the system has suffered badly as a result.  Many trains are poorly maintained and delays are common, but luckily for us the routes to the satellite towns and villages around Riga on an electrified line generally have a better service than the intercity and international routes.  Riga’s central station is Centrala Stacija and although it has been modernised in a fashion it still appears stark and authoritarian with an alarming absence of modern customer care basics.  I shouldn’t complain however because to put things into some sort of perspective the return journey to Majori was only one Lat, twenty-five cents, or about £1.40 in real money.

We found the platform and the waiting train in its bright blue and yellow livery and got on and found a seat and one thing that can be said about Latvian railways is that they are punctual because this one left dead on time.

This train was not the best one that I have ever been on; it was utilitarian, grey, uncomfortable and a living testimony to finest Russian engineering and style.  The interior of the carriage was a no-frills affair with hard bench seats and a complete absence of modern travelling refinements.  It was grubby and without charm and it creaked and groaned as the tired old engine pulled the carriages out of the station and out of the city over the river Daugava and into the outskirts of the city that were a total contrast to the cosmopolitan city centre.  Here it was easy to understand why people from Latvia give up a life in their own country to come and live in Lincolnshire. 

Progress between worn out stations was painfully slow and the train passed through suburbs strewn with litter and rubbish and with a marked absence of civic pride.  About half way to Jūrmala there was a huge estate of decaying communist high-rise apartment buildings that had probably been constructed hastily in the 1960s to house the seven hundred thousand Russian workers who were sent here by the Soviets to colonise Latvia in a deliberate policy of Russification.   Life must have been quite good for these privileged colonists under the old regime but when Latvia gained independence in 1991 they were in for a shock because it only granted automatic citizenship to those who had lived in the first independent Latvian state, between 1918 and 1940.

There was good reason for this because Latvia had suffered hugely under Soviet rule. During the Stalin years thousands were arrested and sent to Siberian labour camps, or simply executed for being part of the Latvian partisan groups who opposed occupation. To replace them, hundreds of thousands of Russians, Belarussians and Ukrainians flooded into the republic and 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 itself only a third were Latvian.

 Today, the government is determined to revive the Latvian identity and it says that it’s policy towards Russians who immigrated here during the Soviet period is aimed not at punishing them for the sins of the Soviet regime (as some suspect) but at ensuring that they learn Latvian and integrate fully into the new 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.

The train lumbered on and a lady ticket collector examined our tickets.  This appeared to be a throw back to the Soviet days because each carriage seemed to have it’s own ticket inspector, which seemed to be a very generous staffing allocation.  There were not many tourists on the train and the announcements were made in impenetrable Latvian and the stations had a confusing absence of any helpful place names but luckily there was an old lady sharing our bench seat who guessed that we travelling to the town of Majori and gave us helpful advice on where to get off.

And getting off of the train was another interesting experience because there was no platform in any sort of fashion that we would recognise and it was necessary to leave the train down steep steps that stopped about fifty centimetres from the tarmac that involved a final jump that only the most able bodied would ever be able to manage.  There were no signs of measures to combat disability discrimination here I can tell you.  In fact, on account of the lack of engineering refinements on board, the whole railway journey experience seemed fraught with danger and this was well illustrated by a sign on the heavy metal doors that seemed to indicate that male passengers in particular should be careful not to trap delicate bits of their anatomy in between the closing doors as this could be very, very painful indeed.  And to emphasise this the letters can be rearranged into that well-known warning ‘tite bals nastie’.

The Blue Flag beach award was originally conceived in France in 1985 where the first coastal municipalities were awarded the Blue Flag on the basis of criteria covering standards relating to sewage treatment and bathing water quality.   Two years later, 1987 was the ‘European Year of the Environment’ and the concept of the Blue Flag was developed as a European initiative by the Foundation for Environmental Education in Europe to include other areas of environmental management, such as waste disposal and coastal planning and protection and in that first year two hundred and forty four beaches from ten countries were awarded the new Blue Flag status.  Twenty-two years later in 2009 when the updated list was published in June there were two thousand seven hundred and ten (up by ninety-eight from 2008).

Thirty-eight countries are currently participating in the Blue Flag Programme: Bahamas, Belgium-Flanders, Bulgaria, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominican Republic, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Russia, Romania, Scotland, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey and Wales, 

Spain has more blue flag beaches than any other participating country with four hundred and ninety-three along almost five thousand kilometres of coastline.  Andalusia has the most kilometres of blue flag beach but in absolute terms, Galicia is the community with more blue flags (124), followed by Catalonia (108), Valencian Community (101), the Balearics (85), Andalusia (83), the Canary Islands (35), Murcia (16), Asturias (12), Basque Country (3) and Ceuta and Melilla (2 each).  the United Kingdom by comparison, has only one hundred and seven in nearly twelve thousand five hundred kilometres.  Sadly this is thirty-seven beaches down on the previous year, which means we must be getting dirtier. Greece has the second most blue flags at four hundred and twenty-five  (down five) and the most in the Mediterranean Sea.  Even though France increased its successful beaches from two hundred and thirty-eight to two hundred and sixty-three it has been replaced in third spot by Turkey, which has increased by fifty-one to two hundred and eighty-six. Portugal completes the top five list with two hundred and twenty five beaches.

What is interesting however is to put this into context by relating success in terms of numbers to the total length of coastline because that reveals that Slovenia has a blue flag beach every six kilometres, Portugal every eight and Spain every ten.  In the United Kingdom you have to travel one hundred and sixteen kilometres between each blue flag beach and that puts us twenty fifth out of the top twenty-five.  That is even worse than our annual performance in the Eurovision song contest!  Mind you would have to travel a lot further in Norway because it has only three blue flag beaches in eighty-three thousand kilometres of coast (including all the fjords of course).

To be honest I am not really a beach person, I get quickly bored and I think that sand is completely incompatible with the intimate nooks and crannies of the human body but one blue flag beach that I have visited and enjoyed is Jurmala in Latvia (in the picture above receiving its blue flag in 2007).  The first time that I saw Jurmala was in June 2006 and it was a real eye opener because this was a very high quality beach with miles of scrupulously clean sand, three blue flags and a clear Baltic Sea stretching out over the Gulf of Riga towards Sweden over the horizon.  I had expected the sea to be grey and forbidding like the North Sea of my childhood holidays but instead it was a serene denim blue and looked genuinely inviting.  There were a few holidaymakers on the beach but not many in the sea because I suspect that looks were deceptive and that the Baltic remains fairly inhospitable for most of the year.

Under the Communist regime up until 1991 this was a popular destination for high-level Communist Party officials and it was a favourite destination of Russian Presidents Brezhnev and Khrushchev.  I cannot help finding it ironic that Blue Flags should be awarded to a Red Army beach.

Last Friday all UCanDance Sport Dance club members had Latino party in Cha-cha style.

Photos from Friday party are also available.

Hallo ihr lieben,

ich sende euch allen viele Grüße aus Lettland.

Bis nächste Woche

Jörg

Strand von Jurmala