An ice-cold wind blows through the deserted streets of Riga. Hat, gloves and thick winter jacket fail on this blustery March day. “North winds are always cold,” says Kristine, who is accompanying us on this trip. A conspicuous number of yellow and blue flags are flying in the streets. In addition, there are the red and white Latvian flags. “Yesterday was Memorial Day for the victims of communist terror,” she clarifies. I’ll find out what that means during a stop at the KGB museum on the way from the airport to the hotel.
The corner house and the KGB – about deportation, torture and interrogation
In 1949, the Soviet occupation regime deported 43,000 people from Latvia to Siberia – peasants, intellectuals and others whom Moscow considered enemies of communism. “Everyone has someone in their family who was deported,” Kristine says. In the former KGB building, the nondescript corner building, we are led through the interrogation rooms and prison cells and end up looking at a wall with bullet holes. The cold temperatures in the rooms, which were heated to 30 degrees at the time, take us back to the days when the Committee for State Security (KGB) operated in Latvia. Checkists imprisoned in the corner house from 1940 to 1941 and from 1944 to 1990 the Latvian citizens whom the occupation regime considered enemies, interrogated, tortured and in the first year of occupation also murdered them. Bullet holes indicate that shootings continued after 1944.
I came to walk through moors and explore historic towns and yet every pore of this trip is also filled with politics and history. We are on the EU and Nato’s external border. Fear runs deep – has for years and especially since the Crimea annexation. Latvian society is divided – this has been expressed not only since the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Half of Riga’s population of 640,000 is Russian-speaking. “People keep to themselves,” Kristine says. Separate schools here lay the groundwork for the different lifestyles in the small nation. In Soviet times, the Latvian-speaking part of the population certainly benefited from this in order to preserve their identity and language, but today this dichotomy is seen as more of a divider. How the Russian-speaking part of the Latvians thinks and feels here, I will not find out on this trip.
Opposite the Russian embassy hangs a large skull of Putin. Countless posters against the Ukraine war flutter on the fence. We meet the artist Harijs Grundmanns at a wall a bit away from the city center. Only one week after the outbreak of the war he initiated a graffiti for peace together with 39 other artists. In only 5 to 6 hours this was implemented. Latvians can understand too well what is happening in Ukraine right now – this is emphasized in all conversations we have. Protest is therefore natural, even if it is not expressed as strongly in all parts of Latvia as it is in the capital.
Bunkers and the signs against oblivion
Just an hour away from Riga, in Ligatne, is a fully equipped bunker for the political elite during the Soviet era. “For the past four weeks, my tours have taken on a different reality,” begins historian Oskar Okonovs as he begins the tour of the 9 m deep and 2000 sqm large facility under a rehabilitation center. Bunkers are usually located inconspicuously under civilian buildings. This bunker, built in the 1980s and code-named “Old People’s Home,” was built to hold about 225 people and to survive for three months. Of course, only the political elite, such as the first secretaries of the Soviet Communist Party Voss and Pugo, to be able to continue the state business from there in case of nuclear war or other disasters.
Annual exercises were held in it, but for an emergency the $4 trillion dwelling (which was 1/3 of Latvia’s state budget) was never used. The bunker lost its secrecy only in 2003. The Soviet era is omnipresent in the underground corridors. All the signs are in Russian. The bunker forms an autonomous structure, all authentic facilities have been preserved to this day. We look at rooms, the dining room, consultation rooms, the communication center and also the air filter room. “The technology is not up to date, but everything must be repairable,” says Oskar, operating the still-functioning air filtration system without warning to scare us with the noise.
If you grew up in eastern Germany, some of the things Oskar conveys with his acting interludes are very familiar. After the hour-long tour, we reappear in the lobby of the rehabilitation clinic, which is out of time with its interior. Here Oskar bids us farewell with the cautionary words, “We have lived in peace for too long, so we forgot about war. We must remember, because if we forget, it will happen again and again.”
Snowshoeing to the Kemeri Bog
Even though socio-political issues always come to the fore – Latvia offers so much more. Beautiful corners to switch off and relax, for example – even if that’s hard to do in these times. We drive to a place where we don’t meet people and don’t constantly check the news – to the moor.
Ieva hands out snowshoes at the edge of the forest. Spring is fresh and there are still some snow remains everywhere. But these are not the point. Rather, they should distribute our weight and give us support when we hike through the moorland. I quickly suppress the thoughts from my childhood of sinking into the bog. In Kemeri National Park, there are raised bogs, low grass bogs, and transitional bogs. The Great Ķemeri Bog is one of the largest raised bogs in Latvia. Footpaths lead directly into the bog. But for us Ieva has chosen another place, which is best walked with the converted snowshoes.
The trumpeting of cranes echoes over the heath and pine landscape. Geese fly over our heads as we shuffle across the still mostly frozen water. Again and again it cracks and vibrates under our shoes. The moss, marked by the winter, only reluctantly gives way. Spring is making its way and yet the green still has to grow. The sun does not let us down today and puts a special filter on the landscape. Ieva points to cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries… in summer you can’t starve and die of thirst here. She holds moss in the air and rinnt this from. This is how you get filtered water, drinking water! We reach a lake area with small islands. Some islands without trees even float. The water here is said to be 4 m deep, in which Latvians go swimming in summer. Even fish are said to exist here in the marsh, even if they don’t survive. In summer, the locals even sleep under the stars. Without a tent, they say, this is allowed here. On the way back through the moor, Ieva says that somewhere below us there are surely still ammunition. After all, in World War II, the bog was the last major obstacle for armored vehicles before reaching the Bay of Riga. We charge ourselves with nature and culture and are accompanied by history, because it tells us a lot about the present.
Jurmala – the beach town
Not far from the marsh there is the sea. A wide white strip of fine quartz sand dancing in the wind. Seagulls play in the waves. How beautiful it must be here in summer. Jurmala, the town that consists of many small villages, translates as beach. It stretches for 30 km along the Baltic coast. So Riga is by the sea after all, because it has a good rail connection that takes city dwellers to the resort every ten minutes in just 40 minutes through beautiful spruce forests. Colorful wooden summer houses and villas built in the early 20th century seek shelter under pine trees, with the sea roaring behind them.
Beautiful Riga – balm for longing and broken hearts
Latvia is small, so you can also use the capital as a base to explore surrounding places. I’ve been here before, more than 10 years ago, and I’m permanently experiencing déjà vu. What’s missing these days compared to then are the many tour groups in the narrow streets of the old town. The Latvian capital seems almost deserted.
Like most visitors to Riga who are interested in culture, we stroll through the Klusais centrs district, which means “quiet center.” Expensive cars park in the streets. This is where those who have money live and work. In this area we find especially many of the more than 800 Art Nouveau buildings that exist in the Latvian capital. Most of them were built in 1900-1910, when the prospering industrial city needed housing. The most magnificent houses were designed by Mikhail Osipovich Eisenstein, which can be found between Albert Street (Alberta Iela) and Elisabeth Street (Elisabetes Iela).
If you are looking for beauty, Riga is the place to be. Many different styles combine in the alleys of the Old Town and beyond. A walk takes you through City Hall Square and Cathedral Square past the Powder Tower to the Opera House. Kristine emphasizes again and again that Riga is a German city, we must not forget that. There is hardly a building that was not planned by a German master builder. In front of the cathedral, behind whose brick walls the 6768 pipes of the organ sound daily in summer, stand the Bremen Town Musicians. And the oldest houses in the city, the “Three Brothers”, were once built by German merchants. Thanks to the Hanseatic League, many merchants came to the city in the Middle Ages and shaped the old town center. The Schwarzhäupterhaus near our hotel is, along with the Great and the Small Guild, just one of those magnificent buildings, behind whose ornate facade once u
nmarried German merchants met. The house, built in the 14th century, was destroyed during World War II and rebuilt only in 1999.
There are places that are busy even in quiet Riga – the central market in Nēģu iela. This is one of the largest and oldest markets in Europe. Here we meet with TV chef Martins Sirmais️️, who also owns restaurants like the 3 pavāru restorāns. He accompanies us through the five pavilions in former zeppelin hangars, relics from the First World War. In one hangar you can find more fruits and vegetables, in the other fish and meat, and in another corner again baked goods. The cooking professional shows us on different foods, how you can tell that they are not on the rearing or are fresh: A jagged fin on the fish, for example, indicates wild-caught. At the Pick Corner there is the leftover ramp and in the Charity Line you can set up a stall for a fee of 1 euro. The market is a meeting place for all social classes. At the end Martins leads us through the cellar corridors under the market. In the morning it is busy here when the goods are delivered and meat is cut. Now, on the other hand, it is eerily quiet here again.
Our days in Latvia always end in a restaurant – usually with “Contemporary Local Cuisine”. Local often means that the ingredients come from the area. We ask what is really typical for Latvia: “Rīgas Melnais balzam” is the answer. Kristine raises her glass on the last evening and addresses the kitschy words to us in a lilting tone: “Balzam heals everything except a broken heart and the longing for Riga.” And adds with a laugh, “Don’t write that, though!” Her own family history is marked by deportation, flight and a whole lot of feeling at home – she knows what she’s talking about when she talks about her longing for Riga. And besides, such a liqueur also warms – especially in these cold March days.
Part 2 on Estonia will be published shortly
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I was invited by Gebeco to this research trip in Latvia and Estonia. All views are my own.
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