Riga, Latvia

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. ~Hilaire Belloc

In August, Michal & I fulfilled an item on our bucket list: we traveled for a whole month.  

We booked a trip to Russia, but our flight had an 16 hour layover in Riga.  It was through a super, super low budget airline called Air Baltic.  I guess it's their way of strengthening the economy in Latvia.  A lot of travelers come through this airport in the early evening, hit the city that night and leave the next morning for their final destination.  It was absolutely perfect because this was really only a one night city.  We walked about 3 hours and felt like we saw everything the tour books recommend.  However, downtown is overly charming and so we just wandered the streets for another 2-3 hours so that we could really capture the essence of this beautiful, captivating pocket-sized city.

 On the left is a cool church renovated to look like a castle.  The right shows St. Mary's Dome Cathedral covered in scaffolding. Beautiful organ music was flowing from within the walls as we walked by, but we couldn't enter the Cathedral.  We later found out that this historic building boasts of having one of the largest organs in the world with 6,768 pipes.

 Michal & I sought out the Powder Tower of the Latvian War Museum on the right... but we stumbled upon this house on the left.  We loved the architecture of it and the color.  We loved the way it looked so picturesque.  Then we looked up and noticed large cats atop of the pointy rooftops.  We were intrigued... took a picture... and decided to look it up later.  Come to find out that this structure is called, "The Cat House."  It gathers its nickname from the cats which are found placed as a part of the silhouette of the facade.  The story goes that the owner of this house was denied membership in the local Guild, so to show his displeasure he built two cat sculptures on his roof with their backsides facing the guild and their tails up to finish the insult.  Glad we stumbled upon it because it is actually a quite popular attraction in Riga.

 Riga's Freedom Monument.  This is a very symbolic and important monument to the country of Latvia and holds many revered meanings.  It is the most photographed monument in Latvia and is comparable to the Brandenburg Gate of Berlin or the Big Ben of London or the Eiffel Tower in Paris. From the importance of this monument to this city, this monument will debut on the Euro Coin (which represents Latvia) once Latvia accepts the Euro currency.

The statue holds three stars which symbolize the 3 regions of Latvia.  During Soviet occupation Latvians told the Soviets that the monument depicted "Mother Russia" and the 3 stars she was holding represented the 3 Baltic Republics: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.  This is the main reason that this monument was honored and not removed during Soviet occupation.  Another reason is because occupation authorities knew how sacred and symbolic the monument is for the people - and fearing protests - didn't remove it.  However, the Russians opened up the street passing the monument in hope that the monument would eventually crumble.  Luckily this monument survived as did the hope and spirit of this country.  One interesting fact about this monument about that the woman atop (a symbol of freedom) faces the west, while the monument of Lenin, located down the street during occupation, faced east.  With their backs to each other it shows how Latvians looked to the West for help and resisted the East. 

 Colorful and picturesque streets.

These 3 houses are nicknamed "The Three Brothers" and represent a superior example of medieval architecture.  These houses are the oldest stone houses which are still standing in Riga and were built between the 15th Century (White Brother) and the 18th Century (Yellow Brother).  The "White Brother" also houses the Latvian Museum of Architecture.

The Banks of the Daugava River in Riga is absolutely stunning and breathtaking.  The light shimmers off the water creating a glistening city in its reflection.  Upon the rivers banks can be found the Statue of St. Christopher - the Founder of Latvia.

According to legend...

In ancient times, before Riga was built, a very large man named Kristaphs (Latvian form of Christopher) built himself a hut on the right bank of the Daugava River.  He earned his living by carrying people across the river on his back.  They disembarked at the spot where Riga now stands. One night Kristaps awoke to the sound of a child crying on the left bank of the river.  He waded over, picked up the babe and began to carry him back across the river to the hut.  With each step, Kristaps found that the child became heavier and heavier until by midstream only with the greatest of effort Kristaps made it to shore.  (Legend goes that the babe was really the Christ Child in disguise, but he was bearing the weight of the sins of the world.)  With his last ounce of strength, Kristaps laid the child on the rug in front of the hearth in his hut and dropped off into an exhausted slumber. In the morning Kristaps awoke to discover that the child had disappeared, leaving behind gold.  Kristaps was a humble man and never spent the gold during his lifetime by gave all the money to build Riga near the sport where his hut once stood. 

In about 1510 a large wooden sculpture appeared in Riga on banks of the Daugava River.  The statue was nicknamed "Big Christopher."  The people of Riga loved this statue and adorned him with ribbons, floral wreaths, and candles and begged for his protection against the city.  It is remarkable that this statue still stands, but iconic images of this statue with a child on his shoulder can be seen throughout the whole city of Riga and even on some old Latvian coinage.

 On the left is the Town Hall Square; the right - St. Peters Church.  A fun fact about this church is that it has been destroyed... A LOT.  So once the tower was rebuilt they took a piece of glass to the top and threw it off the top.  Superstition was that the more pieces that the glass broke into - the longer the church would stand.  Alas, a pile of straw cushioned the glass and it only broke into two.... and as luck would have it... the tower burnt to the down the following year.  The last time the tower was rebuilt they performed the glass ritual again and the glass shattered... or shall I say... there were "smashing results."

More charming streets in Riga.

 This statue is unusual a Rooster standing atop a cat standing atop a dog standing atop a donkey. Why are they standing on each others backs?  That's the whole story behind the interesting sculpture.  While traveling these 4 animals passed a cottage and when they looked inside they realized that it was being robbed.  They decided to stand on each others backs to give the robbers a musical performance and get food in return.  Instead the robbers were scared away by this "strange animal" and the animals were able to therefore enter the house and enjoy a great meal. 

This statue is based on a fairy tale by the Brothers Grim and represents the Town Musicians of Bremen.  The statue was a piece of art that was a gift from Bremen (Riga's twin city) in 1990.  In fact, the sculpture is an exact replica of the one in Bremen City Hall located in Bremen, Germany.

 This is one of Michal's masterpiece pictures.  He has decided to start taking pictures of me because I am so curious at what others are doing and always join the "crowd" trying to figure out what is going on.  Michal often teases me that one of these days there are going to be gunshots somewhere and instead of us running, I will want to "go see what happened."  Here they were giving free archery lessons.  I missed out on the lessons, but didn't miss out on what was going on.

And this was Michal's most artistic picture of the day.  We decided to head home around 9:45pm - and it was STILL light outside!  We were so happy that it was because it let us do more exploring of the city that we never would have been able to see without it staying light outside for so long.  I guess that's a benefit of traveling in the North, but not fun if you have to live here and wake up early in the morning from the sun coming up early.

Next city, coming soon...