latvia | Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

We were lucky enough to have spent a couple of days of the Easter weekend in Riga, capital of Latvia. The city has a great collection of Jugendstil (German Art Noveau) buildings from the 1930’s and it was very nice to walk in its cobbled streets, even if the weather was not much better than Finland. It was very interesting to see how much investment has come from the Nordic countries, with a large amount of Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian companies present in the country and a partly-renovated airport that looks decidedly similar to those of Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm & Helsinki with its use of wood, glass and iron.

The country has a long history of foreign occupations from Germany, Sweden and Russia, so a visit to its museums is definitely recommended to get some background information on the way the country came to be what it is. Furthermore, it currently tries to recover from the after-effects of the global financial crisis, when it’s economy pretty much collapsed. Not surprisingly, travelling here is relatively cheap, but due to inflation consumer prices are almost at Scandinavian levels.

The break was very welcome indeed and I’m happy to have crossed out the last of the Baltic countries I was missing.

The House of Blackheads with the statue of Roland, one of the main hallmarks of the city.

St. George at the House of Blackheads — St. George, a detail of the House of Blackheads

Flowers at the Freedom Monument — The Monument to Freedom. Latvians renew the flower offerings every day.

Latvian National TV in Easter — The country has a sizable Russian-speaking minority, so foreign TV programmes are dubbed in Latvian and subtitled in Russian.

Daugava River Panorama — Panorama of Riga and the Daugava river

River in the park — Small channel in the old city.

We never notice it, but one way or another we live thorugh history, we are making history ourselves. I started thinking about it when, in a class about Political Environment of Business, I sat next to a Polish exchange student. We talked a little bit about his childhood experiences “behind the iron curtain” and it all was a little eery. I’ve had that discussion before with friends from Latvia, Germany and Estonia.

Then we come to family history. My family has witnessed first hand such events in Mexican history such as the Revolution, the Cristero War, hyperinflation and devaluations and the 2000 and 2006 presidential elections.

We don’t truly notice what is going on until it is past behind us.

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

Tag Archives: latvia

Riga

Living history

Musings from a child of globalisation.