Riga: What a Gem!

I must admit when we were planning our BLIB (Balkans, London, Ireland, Baltic) tour we chose to go to the Baltic mainly because it was there and we hadn’t been.  But after 10 dreary, rainy days in Ireland I was longing for the sunny skies of Greece, despite the heat wave they are currently having.  But our flight was booked to Riga, Latvia so off we went and I am very glad we did.  What a little gem Riga is!

Riga is the capital of Latvia and the largest city in the Baltic states, yet at just over 600,000 people it is quite a manageable town.  It is known for its Art Nouveau architecture and one third of all buildings in the city are in this style.  Every building is a work of art and we gawked, oohed and aahed on every street corner, snapping photos and marveling at the intricate plaster work and sculptures.  It was a sheer delight to just walk around the city.

The French Embassy

Sculptures and intricate plaster work

We would have loved to stay in this hotel

So much detail

The House of Blackheads - a dermatologist's nightmare - no, originally a guild hall

Turrets and arched windows

 

We also loved the pure whimsy of some of the sculptures on the buildings and scattered around the city parks.

Arched cat on top of the Cat Building

Boy scratching his head while reading a book

A latch to keep a window shutter open

A huge statue of an ape spaceman

A famous graphic designer

In one of the squares a wedding party came and the bride and groom started dancing and the local tourist and onlookers spontaneously started to sing a Latvian song.

The bride and groom

We had a quick stroll through the markets near the train station – a real treat.

Caviar

Spices

Smoked fish

We went to a few museums, the War Museum (so sad there seems to be a war museum in every city but never museums for diplomacy and peace) and the Museum of Occupation where we learned a great deal about the history of Latvia.  For most of its history, Latvians were ruled by foreign powers.  Latvians were tribal pagan groups until the 12^th Century when German crusaders tried to convert them to Christianity.  Initially the Latvians were not eager to convert but a bit of force and bloodshed finally converted them.  Riga, being an ideal port, then became a member of the Hanseatic League, a commercial and defensive confederation of merchant guilds.  Then Latvians came under the successive rules of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Poland and Sweden until the early 19^th Century. 

A nationalistic awakening occurred in the latter half of the 1800’s and it looked like Latvia might gain its sovereignty.  Then World War I devastated the country.  We never hear much in our history lessons about this Eastern front in WWI but it was quite brutal.  The population of Riga went from half a million in 1913 to about 150,000 people after the war.  Immediately after WWI, Latvia did declare its independence but it was short lived with the advent of WWII.  Latvia lost 200,000 people (about one-tenth of its population) during the war including 70,000 Jews murdered during the Nazi occupation.  The rise of Hitler and Russia’s territorial ambitions resulted in the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in the early days of the War.  This pact essentially sealed Latvia’s fate until 1991 when it gained freedom from Russia.  It is now a thriving country and a member of the EU.

The War Museum

An apt sentiment

I am looking forward to seeing more of this area.  The people are very friendly with a good sense of humour which belies the hardship of their recent history.