Riga, Latvia and the Soviet occupation of the Baltic

by Michelle Nelson

House of the Blackheads (truly, this is what it is called)

The next stop on the east European tour is Latvia. Latvia is the middle country of the Baltic States. They speak yet another Slavic language so we have learned our three words: Paldies (thank you), lūdzu (please) and  sveiki (hello).
Learning Latvian is actually unnecessary because the people all speak either German or English. However, it makes people smile when we try to speak their language. Either that or they are laughing at my pronunciation.

Another border crossing, this time into Latvia

In Latvia, there are still major highways connecting the towns which are not paved. We learned that the hard way on our way to Kuldiga. The navigation system in the Citroen had us drive over 45 km dirt road.

Deep sand and lots of bumps on the road to Kuldiga

After a few minutes on the dirt road the Citroen electrical system gave the warning that the battery was not being charged. This was not a place we wanted to break down! A quick wiggle of the battery cables did the trick and we were on our away.

We arrived in Kuldiga well shaken… but not stirred.

Rapids on the Vent River in Kudiga

Kuldiga is home to the longest waterfall in Europe. Not the highest, it is only about 2 m high. 

Many Latvians come to Kuldiga to walk across the waterfall and to swim in the Venta river. Which of course, we had to try too.

Michelle swimming in the waterfall

The river was beautiful and much nicer to swim in than the Baltic Sea. It was very clean and there were many fish, water lilies and rushes. It was also warm.

old restored brick bridge 

Kuldiga is also known to be best preserved city in Latvia. There are lots of old buildings in various states of disrepair as well as renovated buildings. The reason there are so many old buildings is that the town was in a restricted area during the Soviet regime and only residents were allowed to enter the city. The town was basically kept in a time capsule and is now used by the Latvian film industry as a movie set.

The entire peninsula was a military restricted zone

One of the older wooden style houses - with a good bar and eatery

There are houses from all eras in Kuldiga, renovated ones as well as ruins.

City park of Kuldiga

There has been a lot of money invested for the infrastructure and renovations in Kuldiga. We saw many signposts discussing EU projects for the renovation of old houses, a pedestrian zone and a museum. Our EU tax Euros at work! Latvia very recently introduced the Euro and the prices were still quite low. Not like in Germany where the pizza which cost 10DM before the Euro - now costs 10 Euros – we had 100% inflation on some things! A full shopping bag of groceries only cost us 6 Euros.

Our hotel in Kundiga,  “Jēkaba seta” – 40 Euro a night including breakfast

Riga – the biggest city of the Baltic countries

On our way to Riga, the capital of Latvia and the biggest city of all the Baltic countries, we drove through many large forests and some small villages. In a little village called Sabile we found these people next to the road. An artist is creating these puppets during the long winter and sets them up in her garden.

Of course, there was also a bride in the crowd of puppets. Overall, we saw so many freshly married couples in all the Baltic countries. Uli felt like a wedding photographer and he took pictures of every bride.

Why do we not see this many brides in Germany or the USA? Maybe they celebrate differently and make a little trip on their wedding day?

We arrived at our nice city hotel in Riga and immediately went to the old town. They have many old restored buildings, but what I liked best was the fact, that they left the Soviet style building next to the famous “Blackhead Building”. In my opinion, we should keep buildings from every historical phase and not tear down buildings because they do not fit with the current political government.

House of the Blackheads

Soviet age building with Museum of Occupation

Berlin tore down the “Palast der Republik” building after the re-unification and now they are rebuilding the old Berliner Schloss at that location. Almost all parts of the famous Berlin wall are gone too. Which period in Berlin history is more well known to the world, the “cold war” or the period of the Berliner Schloss? Let’s ask the world.

OK, back to Riga. The Soviet building has a nice museum about the exciting Baltic history of the 20th century especially concerning the Soviet Occupation from 1945 to 1991

The museum was very interesting. We did not realize that the Baltic countries considered themselves to be occupied by the Soviet Union from 1945 to 1991! There was even a mass deportation of over 200,000 Latvians to “Gulags” in Siberia around 1945. Gulags are soviet working camps in the cold, desolate part of USSR where many of the Latvians died due to starvation. Only after Stalin was no longer in charge were they allowed to return. There was also a great display on the Berlin wall which you will not find in Berlin.

We continued our walk through the old town with many interesting buildings like the three brothers. These are three buildings from three different centuries. One of the three domestic houses was built in the 15th centure and is the oldest home in Riga. Guess, which one?

The rightmost house is the oldest and was built in the 15th century. The other two in the 16th and 17th respectively.

We should also mention that Riga is also famous for the Art Deco or Art nouveau buldings. Here is an example of a portico.

All this sightseeing made us hungry so we went to a nice restaurant. Uli tried the national dish, “Blood pudding with onions and potatoes” because he never gets to eat Blutwurst at home. So many tourist groups walked by our restaurant and took pictures. We were wondering why. After our fancy drink, we looked at the house and found out we were in the Cat House which has a cat figure on the roof. There is supposedly an interesting story about it, but honestly I do not know it . Maybe you can google it and find out for us.

The most entertaining thing we saw in Riga was these Latvian gentlemen trying to fix a bent wheel on their friends bicycle.

I have to report, this did not work and he had to carry his bicycle afterwards.

Latvian Independence

While wandering the city, we came across a demonstration commemorating the 600 km long human chain made across the Baltic countries in 1989 as they were trying to peacefully obtain independece and rid themselves of the Soviets.

This is the good part of not making any detailed plans or taking a tour but just to wander where your feet take you. You see some unexpected and cool things.

They even had the Ukrainian Flag and costumes as the feeling is that the Ukrainians are in danger from Russia once again. This very long chain of candles represents the human chain and the monument in the background is the freedom monument built in the 40s.

At the beginning of the demonstration the people began to sing native songs and I was told that this was a major part of their independence movement which was also called the “singing revolution”. Singing is definitely better than fighting!

Paddling the Guaja River

Latvia is also known for its nature and scenery. After all, there are only about 2 million people in the whole country. The Gauja river was recommended to us and we found a company called Zagarkalans in Cesis who rented us a tent, sleeping bags and a canoe. They also took us to our starting point on the river as well as picking us up the next day in Lingagne and providing us maps and tips for our trip on the river.

At night it was freezing and the ground was very hard with just our sleeping bags and no air mattresses or padding. We were very glad to only have one night of sleeping in the tent. Perhaps, just perhaps, we are too old for this kind of thing!

Free firewood for the taking at the camps

It took us a while to manage to paddle the canoe down the river in a straight line. Mostly we were doing a zig zag course. Evidently, you have to work together in the canoe and we were not sure who was steering and who was paddling. My feeling was - Uli always wanted to sit in the back and let me do the paddling. He claimed it was because he was better at steering.

We had a bit of excitement as there were about 3 sets of rapids we had to cross. The guide told us we should go straight through. This was easier said than done and we actually managed to do a complete 360 degrees on two of the rapids but no worries. We did not tip the boat as the water level was low and the rapids were small.

But mostly it was smooth sailing with crystal clear water.

zagarkalns ski lift 

According to the guidebook, the Guaja National Park is in the Latvian Switzerland. Our driver told us the longest run is 300 m but we did not see any mountains. However, there was a ski lift directly on the river...which was very, very short.

That is all for now folks. See you in Estland. The last of the Baltic countries we will visit before heading to Russia.