Riga

I spent a couple of days in Rīga this week meeting with some of the staff of the American Embassy. Rīga is the metropolis of the Baltic states, with a population somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000. Half of Latvia lives in metropolitan Rīga, and it shows: this is clearly the nerve center of the nation. The banks are here, the cultural institutions are here, the shopping is here, the best health care is here, and much of the gross national product is produced here. At about 100,000, Daugavpils is the second-largest city in Latvia, and there is a certain inferiority complex about playing second fiddle to the "real" city up the Daugava River.

I'll have more to say about Rīga in later posts, but for now it's worth just enjoying some photos from its Old Town. This is the oldest part of town, as the name implies, though the city itself is quite large. Rīga's deservedly famous Art Nouveau quarter is just north of this, but this compact area is a touristy delight, with medieval streets, old churches, and plenty of tourists snapping photos of everything, including yours truly.

I met with my friend Svetlana in Rīga ot attend an opera, which will write about in my next post. Svetlana took the photos here, actually, which explains why I am in so many of them. First, the view from my sixth-floor hotel room, overlooking the Lutheran Rīga Dome Cathedral. Second, Dome Square, which is fronted by several important institutions, the national broadcaster Latvijas Radio among them. The Cathedral has one of the largest organs in Europe, with some 4,000 pipes. I would love to hear some of my Detroit-area organist friends get a crack at playing. As you might expect, the Dome has concerts galore.

And on to the other buildings. This one, known as Cat House, is a charmer. Click on the photo and look at the top of the turret and you'll see how it gets its name.

The first photo here is the Small Guild (Mazā Ģilde), and opposite the Small Guild is the Great Guild, the home of the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra. The second is just a typical streetscape. As charming as Old Town is, it is also bewildering in that it is very easy to lose all sense of direction. American cities may be boring in comparison with their general grid pattern, but at least you can find your way around easily. I kept losing my hotel, the same way one might lose a set of keys.

Old Town is very compact and filled with little hotels. I would guess that Rīgans might not spend a lot of time in Old Town -- why deal with all those tourists, and what do we need suvenīri for? A visitor finds it lovely, though I have to admit that I got lost walking to the Embassy, which is way out on the edge of town on the other side of the Daugava River -- generally, the side visitors don't bother with. Being in a real neighborhood filled with citizens just going about their everyday business was seriously enjoyable, and if I hadn't been worried about being late for my appointment, I would have snapped some photos. It looked more like Daugavpils: Russian-style wooden houses with fancy painted shutters, Art Nouveau apartment buildings, and the usual Soviet schlock that make Rīga not look all of a piece the way Old Town does, but more of a real city than a theme park pretending to be a city.

Finally, a very important building: this building houses the Saeima, or the Latvian Parliament.