A comfortable four-and-a-half-hours bus journey from Tallinn brought me to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Whilst old Tallinn was totally medieval, old town Riga is a mix of the old and the modern. So in some sense, after Tallinn, it could have been a bit of a disappointment. But because Riga is more spread than Tallinn, one doesn’t bump into tourists so often and there are none of the fresh-off-the-cruise-ship tourist hordes. So all in all, I enjoyed my time in Riga.
Latvia was under the occupation of the Germans, Poles, Swedes, and Russians at various points in its history. Like the Lithuanians and the Estonians, the Latvians declared independence twice in the previous century – once in 1918 and then (after German and Soviet occupation) again in 1991. Now Latvia is a part of the EU and is aiming to join the Euro at some point in the future.
Riga (founded in 1201) has a profusion of beautiful churches - St. Peters Church, St. John’s, and St. Jacob’s. However, the largest church is Riga Cathedral which has some great stained glass windows. Also known as Dom, this cathedral has been altered over the years, and is now a mix of the Romanesque, Gothic, Baroque, and even the Art Nouveau. At the Orthodox Russian cathedral, with the gentle scent of incense wafting through the holy air, I decided to do a bit of my guide-book reading. I sat in one of those uncomfortable chairs, and without realising it, crossed my legs. Within seconds, the priest (who has actually standing in a corner and texting on his mobile) came upto me and politely reprimanded me for crossing my legs. The irony of uncrossing myself in a church was not lost upon me!
The most striking building in Riga is the house of the Blackheads (a guild for unmarried merchants). The building was destroyed during WWII and was rebuilt in 1999. It is an impressive red bricked structure that somehow reminded me of a south Indian temple. At the square in front of the house (Town Hall square), I was approached by a shabbily dressed Russian man who was selling postcards (Latvia has a high proportion of ethnic Russians). He asked me where I was from. When I told him India, he rummaged through his memory cells and smiled and said, “Hindi Russi bhai bhai”!!!!!
One day at Dome Square (Doma laukums), I heard a gunshot and saw a crowd running for their lives. It turned out to be a movie shoot! And that too Indian (the term ‘bollywood’ is apparently politically incorrect!). I quickly enquired as to who the ‘hero and heroine’ of the movie were. Turned out to be Saif and Kareena. They weren’t there at that point in time but someone told me that they would be there soon. So I went sightseeing nearby and when I returned to the square, I saw a not-so-tall bearded gentleman chatting and realised that it was Saif. Kareena was around too. Since there were very few Indians around, I was able to go and chat with them. I told Saif that at the start of my trip in Helsinki, I saw Bono (I was trying to say that I was lucky in bumping into celebrities).
Instead he asked me, “Why? Do I look like Bono?”
Then he turned to one of his ‘assistants’ and said, “Actually lot of people have said that I look like Bono. At school/college, they used to say that I look like him”.
Ya right!
Anyway, the shooting was extremely boring, they were stuck on one scene. There was a Latvian lady standing next to me - she asked who was shooting etc. She seemed to have heard of Saif (which pleasantly surprised me). She said that she had seen a few hindi movies - she liked the sound of them – apparently the word for dream (sapna) is the same in Latvian! Hindi Latvian bhai bhai! But there was an elderly woman who seemed to be quite worked up – she was saying (in Latvian but I could make out the gist of it) – that these films are showing Latvia in a bad light (the scene being shot was that of a bunch of goons disrupting a wedding). After a while I got bored of the shooting and went back to my own shooting (with my camera!).
On the first of September, I noticed that all the youngsters were dressed to kill with flowers in their hands. A bit of investigation revealed it was back-to-school day when the schools opened after the summer vacations. I can’t imagine being all excited and dressing up for first day of school after vacations. Depression would be more like it.
Riga had a few nice museums – the first one I visited was the Latvian War museum which portrayed the history of the WW I and II, life under Soviet occupation and the history of the Latvian Riflemen (part of the Russian Tsar’s army). I also visited the Latvian National Museum of Art (which covered Latvian artists). There I decided to indulge myself and got an audio guide (also an indicator of the fact that I was in no hurry). The lady at the counter couldn’t get it to work (no repeat of St. Isaac’s – St. Petersburg – she spoke to me in English). She asked me to start visiting the museum and that when she got an audio guide that worked she would bring it to me. Unfortunately, that did not happen till I had almost finished seeing the museum. I then went through the exhibits again – which only shows that I had a lot of time to kill.
Coming to food, I took my custom to Indian Raja where the owner turned out to be a friendly Mumbai-wallah. He runs two Indian restaurants in Riga (I visited the other one too!) and spends alternate weeks in London and Riga (talk about jet-setting).
On that culinary note ends my update from Riga. Next stop, Vilnius in Lithuania.
