RIGA, LATVIA The bus ride from Parnu to Riga takes about 2 1//2 hours, the sceney is more appealing with lakes, low hills, and forests reminiscent of northern Minnesota. Almost half of the 2.2 million people in Latvia, live in Riga, about a third of them are Russian. Riga, a modern cosmopolitan city, has retained its cultural roots in the form of its Old Town - not as medieval as Tallinn - but perhaps a bit more open and inviting. Two superb bands, in separate locations, played rock n' roll late into the night. The music, the warm weather, and late sunset (not until 11) had tourists and locals milling around, listening to the music, drinking beer, and enjoying themselves.
A dollar is worth 11 Estonia Kroon and only 1/2 of a Latvian Lat. Yet prices are about the same and standard of living comparable. The dollar gets you more than in the States but not much more. A modest hotel room with wifi and breakfast cost between $60 and $80. Taxis, trams, and buses are less expensive than in the States. The gastronomic delights are out of this world and reasonably priced. When I get back I must learn how to make blinis (the Russian pancake) and the Latvian potato pancake. Too bad I can't duplicate their beers.
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| Riga Old Town |
Outside the hotel, I rented a bike for two hours for $6, more than enough time to explore Old Town and the immediate area. Locals don't ride bikes, they walk, especially the women, who enjoy strutting around showing off their finest, in high heals, on cobbled streets. Men aside, You see very few women dressed in "ordinary" jeans and those that do are probably tourists from the US, Germany, or England. I wonder if this is in reaction to the scarcity of goods and oppression they suffered under the Soviet Union.
In the center of Old Town is the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1940 - 1991, visited by dignitaries ranging from Laura Bush to Queen Elizabeth. It details the occupation and subjugation of the Lativan people by the Russians, then the Germans, and then the Russians again. It documents the complicity of many in Latvia who allowed the Russians, under the secret 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement with Germany, to take control of their country, and later, their failure to defend their own Jewish citizenry as they were carted off and killed. Only 400 of the 70,000 Latvian Jews survived. The United States own complicity came in the 1945 Yalta agreement that conceded the Baltic countries to the Soviet Union in violation of the Atlantic agreement. A complicated history, with blame and guilt intermingled, the late history of Eastern Europe, of which the social and psychological scars still linger.
