Riga

Latvians do their best to appear western and modern to cater to tourists. Which is unfortunate, as the reason most travellers come to Riga in the first place is to discover the unfathomable East. What they find is an exciting architecture, a relaxed atmosphere and very open people.

Riga went and tricked me. On approaching the city from the west by plane, all you see is water: the bay to your left, lake Babite below, an entire lakeland area above; the Daugava river cutting straight through the middle of the vista, drawing my glance further inland. Riga: city of the Hanseatic League, port city, cranes and canals with all their tributaries and smaller waterways – I’m heavily reminded of Hamburg from above. But my first walk reveals the promenade to be rather inhospitable – the “11. novembra krastmala” is made for cars, not humans; the river is frozen solid; the city noticeably built to avoid the water. So back to the alleyways it is.

I’m here for a month, on a grant from the Goethe-Institut, to portray Riga for Diena and my native Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel. Leaving a stone bridge behind me, I walk straight ahead. The view of the city hall is blocked by the Occupation Museum, an angular and ungainly hulk, placed as if those responsible had deigned it proper to allow one’s first glimpse of the old city centre only through the gate of the horrors of the past century.

The House of the Blackheads is basically a Potemkin village – every bit of it does indeed scream “built in 1999.” It makes me think of the gargantuan City Palace that is just being rebuilt in the middle of Berlin, after having been damaged in World War II and torn down by the Communists. Must being aware of one’s history really always entail reconstructing the old using new stone?

My view of Riga is not impeded by historical obstacles; I am here for the first time: a blank slate, so to say. As my hotel is in the old city centre, I spend most of my time there, right by the red brick walls of St Peter’s, tall and slender, which tickles my fancy more than the misshapen boulder that is Riga cathedral. Maybe St Peter’s just reminds me of Northern Germany, where I lived for several years.


For me, every big city has its own time of day, during which it is at its most characteristic. In Germany, this is easy: Berlin is a city of the night, most enchanting when the winter sludge covering the metropolis seems to melt under the ecstatic cries of drunken tourists. Hamburg with its legendary fish market and its clear seaside air is a city of the morning, daytime best suits prim and proper Munich and Cologne is warm in a boisterous singsong way, an evening kind of place. I’m not quite sure about Riga at first, but I think I’ll go with evening. The Christmas-like street decorations of the new town, the well-filled bars of the old town and the streetlights’ rays reflected warmly by the snow: Riga is most beautiful in the evening.

Maybe it’s because the townspeople go out in the evening. The later the hour along the Kalku Iela, the more tourists head for the bars. This street conveys the overwhelming impression of having been built solely for foreign travellers – binge drinkers from England and Scandinavia and American stag partiers. Why else would Riga need a “T.G.I. Friday’s”, where burgers are twelve Lats including drinks and the waiters are so deliberately made to look alternative and individual that they end up all looking the same after all?

The constant showers of appreciative cheers and small change the four fellows happily performing their music in little-old-granny dresses at the corner of Kalku and Valnu Iela are met with, however, indicate how very much the tourists are longing not for what they know from home, but the special shabby splendour of the East. Latvia shares a strange paradox with many Eastern European countries: Everyone is making an effort to appear as western and modern as possible and receive lots of Western travellers to show their modern Westerliness, but the guests are coming specifically to sample the East in all its unfathomable perks and to see the clichés confirmed with their own eyes. Twice this month, friends from Germany are here to visit – both times, they are most fascinated by the Central Market. Not just by the architecture of the old airship hangars, but by all the hustle and bustle, the engaging vendors interested in their foreign guests – basically, the Easterliness of it all.

I walk the city and simply can’t stop drawing comparisons. Riga seems calmer, safer; there is a lot less aggression hanging in the air compared to German and French cities. Conspicuously, and in contrast to nighttime Berlin, bars are non-smoking and drinking while smoking out front is prohibited. Heavy video surveillance is implemented to dissuade anyone from breaking these strict laws. At the bars themselves, people sip mixed drinks from shot glasses, rather than 80-proof alcohol. Noticeably, the national liquor “Rigas Melnais Balzams” is usually mixed with non-alcoholic beverages and not downed neat. Cheers!


Even when ordering a single beer, locals pay by credit card – great trust is evidently placed in the barkeepers. Cashless payment in general is very widespread. On one hand, it’s modern, but on the other, substituting a seemingly fictional exchange for the transfer of hard money makes you lose track of expenses. I can’t help but think of the advertising slogan “Live now, pay later,” once used in Latvia as well – or so I’m told – and soon becoming a choice of lifestyle for many. Living on credit – one of the causes of the economic crisis. Latvians don’t seem to acknowledge the existence of such a thing, judging by how often a BMW, Mercedes or Audi Quattro TT zooms past.

My preferred method of getting around in Riga is footwork. I walk the Moscow Suburb, deducing from my visit that its unfavourable reputation is solely due to the mention of the Russian capital in its name. I walk along the other side of the river toward Stradiņš University. I also follow the Daugava River on its way to the harbour, seeking a real promenade and finding a derelict alternative centre on Eksporta Iela, across from the ferry passenger terminal. A building marked “Naive Art Museum of Latvia” is now a clothes shop, flanked by a large beer and wine outlet store. A couple of ice fishers are sitting close by. When I approach them, they make me privy to their opinion of Latvian politicians – somewhat too colourful to utter here – and give me drink. Cheers again.

What’s nice about Riga is its “wholeness.” Rather than disintegrating into a pretty old town and tedious suburbs, the city gives off an air that is both homogenous and – in the best sense of the word - bourgeois. Maybe it’s the fact that there are hardly any wide roads or freeway monstrosities cutting through entire neighbourhoods. I keep on walking; when the distance is too great, I take the bus, paying by convenient electronic ticket and passing by decaying old wooden houses. One thing I miss, when comparing Riga to Berlin, is great parks and heterotopias, those extraordinary spaces that keep in the special and repel the common. Sometimes, I get the feeling that the city could do with some breathing space, perhaps a little more of an ocean breeze by a new promenade along the river Daugava.