Hi all!
Dinner last night was great. Went and met Heather and Sonal who I met on yesterday's walking tour. We went to a Latvian folk pub called 'Ala'. I had Latvian meatballs with sauerkraut and we all shared some garlic dippers. I had honey beer and black currant beer which were nice! Had a great night chatting to Heather and Sonal who are both teachers living in London too!
So - night kayaking! Where do I begin? It was legitimately one of the worst travel experience I've ever had. Heather from the walking tour and myself turned up at the meeting point at 10pm. We were driven to a dock and then the "fun" began. We had been told we would kayak in the canals, it turned out we were kayaking the river and canals. The guide was extremely rude so any time someone asked a question about how something worked he belittled them and made them feel stupid. We had been told the kayaking itself would be 1.5 hours and the whole thing 2.5 hours maximum. Instead we kayaked for 2.5 hours and the whole thing took 4 hours, meaning I got to bed at 2am. Really good for my cough I've now had for a month!! The lights and bridges were ok but nothing I couldn't have seen from walking. The guide kept speeding off and at one point Heather and I couldn't see him for 15 minutes. We got heckled by a drunk man on the side of the canal and were terrified, then nearly got lost. I absolutely hated it. Please if you come to Riga DO NOT do this tour! I've sent a complaint email. My only saving grace was upon returning to my hostel I discovered I was the only one in my room. Amazing!
Woke up this morning feeling tired and sick. Then had a shower and set off to meet Heather and Sonal. We crossed the river (by foot this time THANK GOODNESS!) and went to the National Library. It's a really different shaped building and is very modern. When it opened in 2008 the people of Riga created a human chain to pain the books along from the old library across the river. No joke!! We got visitor passes and made our way to the top level where we enjoyed awesome views of Riga over the river. The tower up the church costs €9 which is 3/4 of what I am paying a night for my hostel so we decided this was a better option.
Then Sonal and I headed to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, and Heather went to go and get ready. She was flying to Vilnius, Lithuania and I'll be meeting her tmro. The museum was so interesting. I've never really known about the history or culture of Latvia, and piecing it all together has helped me understand a bit more about World War II in general.
Latvia was independent after World War I, but once World War II started they were taken over by the soviets. This was particularly frustrating for the people here because in 1920 Russia had signed a peace treaty with Latvia fore swearing any claims to its land. But in 1938 the soviets made a pact with the nazis to partition Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Rumania between them.
On the 14th of June 1941 the 'Night of Terror' happened. 15,000 people were basically abducted overnight by the soviets, 1200 of whom were under 7 years of age. They were taken to Siberia and no press coverage was given. Most of their families had no idea what had happened to them.
In 1941 the nazis invaded the soviet republic and took over Latvia. People in Latvia were grateful thinking they were finally saved from the soviets, but things soon got even worse. I need not even mention the details of the holocaust, but basically 70,000 Jews in Latvia were killed during WWII. If in Riga, they were marched to a place called Rumbula. In Latvia in 1935 4.8% of the population were Jewish. In 2011 just 0.3% are. It's even worse in Lithuania - 7.5% vs 0.1%. Latvia lost 1/3 of its population between 1939-1949, a staggering 550,000 people.
After the end of the war the soviets once again ruled here. Remembering past terrors, 180,000 people fled Latvia. Winston Churchill said "that is not the liberated Europe for which we fought", because once again deportations began. 43,000 people were deported to Siberia to labour camps on March 25 1949 alone. Latvia was the the 'Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic' from 1945-1991 before they finally gained their independence. We then also read about post war Germany and Berlin, the wall etc. It was a lot easier to make some more sense of it now I have the background information on Latvia too.
We then stayed on topic and went on another free walking tour, this one to the soviet areas of Riga. We headed through the old town to central market and around the soviet looking streets. We saw a memorial to the 70,000 Latvian Jews murdered in WWII. Our guide Agnese was great and we had a really interesting 2.5 hours. Random fact - there are no swear words in Latvian, they call each other animal names or Russian swear words instead!
Sonal and I headed to the KGB building next for the 3pm tour in English. 'KGB' stands for Committee of Social Security in Russian and was the main security agency for the Soviet Union. They struck fear and terror in the hearts of people in the lands that they controlled, as anyone suspected to be conspiring against them could be abducted inconspicuously off the street and never seen or heard from again. Inside the KGB building people were questioned, tortured, held prisoner and killed. We did the 1.25 hour tour and saw all the interrogation rooms, cells etc. The building looked very soviet and run down. While interesting to see it was hard to imagine the horrors people faced in there. Our guide said its current restoration of its facade is a metaphor for the Soviet Union - beautiful and seemingly perfect on the outside and a complete mess on the inside. She also told us that recently some school kids got locked in a cell and they had to call a locksmith as they don't have the keys anymore - scary!!!
Afterwards we headed to a cafeteria type restaurant called 'Lido'. I had a salmon fish pie type thing, some veggies and a traditional Latvian potato pancake with cheese. Yummy.
Only other person in my dorm tonight is a French guy. Having an early night after last night's disaster, and I have a bus to Vilnius in Lithuania tmro morning. See you there!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
No comments:
Post a Comment