Riga, Latvia

For my latest trip I am heading back to Eastern Europe – going to Latvia, Estonia and Finland. 

Riga itself is relatively compact as a capital city, with the majority of sights within walking distance (for normal people – I of course would walk anywhere!).  Whilst there are a large number of museums about, a lot of them are relatively hidden – only a brass plaque would let you know sometimes that there was a museum behind a closed-looking door.  Churches also seemed to be variable in how they opened to visitors – a number were closed when they said they would be open, which means that it was only the Cathedral that I actually got to look around inside.

One of the highlights was the Latvian National Museum of Art which focussed on local Latvian artists.   The building was also interesting – whilst the majority of the galleries were traditional in nature there was an area “in the roof” at the top of the building where there was a white room in amongst the roof struts and another with glass floors down to the gallery below.  If you didn’t fancy stepping on a glass floor you would have found it quite tricky to get around.

Also from an art perspective I visited the Art Museum Riga Bourse (which had older, international art situated in the old stock exchange building), the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and the Arsenals Exhibition Hall (which had some large landscapes by Vija Zariņa), all of which were part of the National Museum collection.  I also went to the KIM? Contemporary Art Centre, the Porcelain Museum, the Art Academy of Latvia and the Latvian Museum of Architecture.

One of the key events in recent Latvian history is the occupation by the USSR.  This is marked by a number of museums; the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, the Corner House (which is where the KGB was based) and the 1991 Barricades Museum which protected the independence.  However, Latvia hasn’t been independent for much of its life – whilst there have always been distinct peoples, they only became a country after the first world war.  I learnt more on this at the National History Museum of Latvia and the Latvian War Museum.

I took a trip out to the edge of the city to see an open air museum of Latvian Ethological History.  This has a number of old houses (many wooden, thatched buildings) which were across Latvia which are now in a wide, woodland location by a lake.  This was an unexpected delight, as it was fun to walk through the forest as well as see the buildings, which included some churches and windmills of varying designs.  The rain even stopped for most of the time I was there (but then got me as I walked back to the tram afterwards!)

Yes, it has been a wet trip.  I did take advantage of a pause in the rain to walk over the river to the National Library of Latvia and then onwards to the Botanic Gardens.  The library was really impressive – a large, modern building known as the “Castle of Light”.  You had to get a visitor’s pass to get into the building but it was worth it – there are a number of exhibitions around the different floors and lots of interesting design details.  It was also interesting to walk over some of Riga’s bridges to get there and back!

Overall, Riga was an interesting place to visit – probably not as different as I might have expected – in a lot of ways it was like a provincial German city with a fair selection of historical buildings.  Whilst I feared at one point I might be running out of things to see, in the end I had more than enough places to visit in the three and a half days I was there and there are still a number of places I didn’t get to.  However, must keep going onwards!