To piss or not to piss

Almost every week the municipal police of Riga reports happy news that yet another pisser has been court pissing near or on the Freedom monument in Riga. It almost sounds like there is some mafia or network of organized pissing crime. Yet no-one questions why so often people choose to urinate there? Some local nazies think that tourists do so to “shit into soul of Latvians”. Actually the answer is pretty simple. First, they do so to experience a little moment of fame – they are filmed on CCTV cameras, immediately being court by bored police guys and after that most likely they will make headlines in local media. The fine for urinating is much cheaper than if they would decide to buy air time on TV or in press. Also, having done that perhaps turns the pisshead into some sort of a hero in the eyes of greedy friends as besides the sight-viewing in relatively boring city they have done something adventurous to tell their friends back home. Secondly, and this hasn’t been brought up yet, is to look at it from psychoanalytic approach – to think how the Freedom monument works at unconscious level for passers-by. What does the photo from google remind you? Yes, you are right – an urinal or a toilet seat. We believe that there is some sort of way how architecture and its shape can influence behavior of people.

Things that are fucking in Latvia at the moment

For a better understanding for all potential tourists and perhaps also for locals here’s a selection of things that really suck in Latvia at the moment. Please note that they have been written from a visitor’s point of view, not a local Latvians, because in that case the list would be a bit different. Feel free to add your suggestions as comments.

* Lack of modern culture
Perhaps the Riga city can feed tourists with just Jugendstil (Art nouveau) architecture for ever, but there are a lot of other tourists that don’t find Riga attractive as there is no contemporary culture. People usually go to Paris, London and New York not just to watch buildings but also to go to museums and galleries, whenever it’s Louvre, Pompidou, Tate or MOMA. However, in Latvia there is no major museum for contemporary art. Do Latvians really think that tourism can be motivated only with Jugenstil and folk songs? Latvians shouldn’t be surprised that most tourists to Latvia are either pensioners from Germany to whom Jugenstil reflect some sort of colonial nostalgia (Latvia used to be under Germans for many centuries), or either bachelors from Great Britain that do stag parties and enjoy relatively cheap booze and company of naive girls. Riga city and the country should really consider a major contemporary art museum, invest more money in contemporary art and music. And of course, in advertising it later.

* Confusing public transport system
Let’s admit the public transport system in Riga sucks and if we compare it to Soviet times, except new cars, the system itself hasn’t changed. Quite opposite – quite a few routes have been shut down, the prices have increased inadequately. Ok, in Riga there is now the e-talon but it does suck as well as there is no “pay-as-you-go” system, you can add “trips” and not “money” on the talon and you really need to buy a lot (over 20 trips) to save some money. What is even worst is complete lack of route information. Not just in English, but even in Latvian. At bus/tram/trolleybus stops you can’t find information of the route that the transport takes, what kind of stops it makes on the way. It means if you know the stop where you want to go but don’t know what kind of transport goes there, you are stucked! Well, you can just try your luck – get on any transport and expect that such stop will be announced at some point. And one more thing. In Soviet times there was only one bus that brought people to the airport, making about 20 stops on the way and doing the 10 km route in 40 minutes. Today nothing has changed despite the fact that the airport turnout of passengers has perhaps increased at least ten times. Riga lucks a proper coach to the centre that would bring passengers from the airport to the centre making just one or two stops on the way. Every half and hour. It would be also benefit if there would be at least a couple more buses to other suburbs – in this case some of existing lines could be extended to the airport, so that people from, for instance, Zolitude or Ziepniekkalns instead of going backwards to the centre to take the coach could save the time and go straight to the airport with local bus. The city could get much more money that now goes to corrupt taxi companies.

* Still overpriced food&drinks
The economical crisis has stimulated the drop in prices and a lot of shops now run 60-70% discounts on clothes and shoes, but many cafes, bars and restaurants haven’t done the same. There are many average places that still charge 1.99 Ls for a cafe latte or cappuccino making it more expensive than in Berlin or London. Some places now run a business lunch offers at reasonable prices (even 2 Ls) but outside of lunch hours drinks and food is still pretty expensive in Riga. Even in Soviet style canteens the prices are too high. Perhaps it has to do with rent prices of these premises – landlords are not keen to follow the deflation and decrease the rent. Also major supermarkets keep high prices on food, well, perhaps except for bread that is now lower and a few other things that sometimes have a label “sale” on them. For instance, Cido orange juice (just a simple juice) costs beween 0.79-1.19 Ls depending on the shop. That’s about 1.10-1.50 euro per litre of juice. In Berlin you can buy an orange juice as cheap as 0.60 Euro, while in London – for 0.56 pounds. And actually a few months ago my friend saw a Cido juice in Lithuania, he said it was cheaper there than in our own country where it is produced.

* Unprofessional marketing
Well, there is no weekly magazine or newspaper in English that would inform about the current events, respectively what is going on in the city and country. InYourPocket and Riga This Week are mainly just a selection of addresses that don’t publish what is going on at the moment. Most major cities in the world have such guides where tourists can find information about current exhibitions, performances, movies, concerts and other activities. If you search on internet, most things what you get about Riga is fucking boring – just some historical facts and uninspiring photos. Even if you look at the “official Latvia tourism portal – www.latviatourism.lv” – it is complete disaster from a marketing point of view. Waste of tax-payers money and visitors time.

* Dirty suburbs
We agree that most tourists that come to Riga don’t leave the Old city. Perhaps because it’s not on their program, perhaps they are scared or perhaps they just don’t know how (see above about transport). But there are tourists that want to see something besides the centre. So if they go to Agenskalns, Maskavas forstrate or even Bolderaja or Jugla the city will look much more different from the sort of clean and touristic centre. They will find shit and rubbish in the streets or small green squares, ugly houses and dirty alcoholics. The thing is that also street cleaning happens much less in suburbs than in the centre.

What’s on the scene?

Tourists come to Latvia not only for Art Noveau architecture or stag parties but some are seeking entertainment alternatives. For those into popular music Latvia isn’t that bad choice. The price for tickets to mega stars can be twice as low as in, for instance, United Kingdom. For instance, you can see Bjork for 36 Lats only (around 35 GBP), while in London you will pay at least 70 quid.

Below we offer you a selected list of upcoming gigs in June. Over the summer such artists, as Bjork, Sex Pistols, Avril Lavigne and Sigur Ros will tour Latvia too. Check Bilesu serviss and Bilesu paradize for tickets.

09. June – Massive Attack
11. June – Def Leppard
11. June – Linkin Park
20. June – Kylie Minogue
21. June – Lenny Kravitz
29. June – Seal
01. July – Slayer
02. July – Avril Lavigne
07. July – Chemical Brothers
12. July – Lou Reed

National Song Festival scum

If you fancy coming to National Song Festival in Riga this summer – forget it! Tickets were sold out within a few minutes. A couple days ago tickets went on sale and supposed to be available on internet and ticket desks, but internet server crashed down due to high demand, so they were all sold out at ticket desks to dozen of clever knackers who will later distribute them at black market requesting dreamlike prices. There were no limit how many tickets can one buy, so you could grab even 2000 tickets per person. Now the Ministry of Culture try to think what to do. One of suggestions is to put more rows of seats. Sounds crap, so I believe what we really need to do is to wait for third party companies to emerge and get tickets from them for at least twice the normal price. Sounds like Latvia.

Child pornography in Latvia

Do you also think that this photo (see below) is pornographic? A couple days ago police (the force against organized crime) started the process against the author of this poster for children’s play at National Opera in Riga (so now the author – a cute girl with black hair will have a criminal record, good job). The posters and flyers were spreading the city for a month or so until one day some dickhead at police station woke up and thought that this photograph celebrates child pornography. We are wondering if the next step will be to forbid paintings of Rubens or photographs by Nan Goldin or Sally Mann. Knowing salaries of police officers it doesn’t comes as surprise that they have to hire and promote some assholes with pigeon brains.

Fucking nice attitude

If you look like a tourist with some solid income or savings you might not notice how “cool” are customer service people in Latvia in restaurants, cafes, shops, offices and public transport. There is no such word as “excuse me” or “sorry” in Latvian. At least not in public service. If someone steps on you or pushes hard in public transport, don’t expect anything. Even if you try to look angry in their face, there will be no answer, they will probably think what a fucker you are. In Latvia there is no everyday politeness, people don’t excuse for little things like in, for instance, Britain or the States. There is also no “hello” and “good-bye” in big cities. If you go in a shop and say “hi” to salesperson it is very likely that they will just look at you with “what a freak you are” message in their face. Most service people generally are angry and feel like kings and queens in their positions. Probably, the worst people are bus and trolleybus drives, especially males. If you want to get out of bus, you have to wait 2 min before your stop at the door, otherwise you risk that you might not get out at all (they might shut doors too early or don’t stop at all). Bus drivers think they drive some sort of limo and that they are some monarchs with big dicks. Actually, they are bunch of assholes, who think that all passengers are parasites that need to be killed.

Bus in Riga

Service is some bars and restaurants aren’t better. There are places in Riga (for instance, at some branches of “Cofee nation”) where you have to wait half an hour for a waiter and when he/she turns up they have a face where you can easily read “what a fuck you want?”. If you order a meal, drink and coffee, it’s good to tell that you want to drink that coffee at the end, otherwise they will bring it together with all other drinks. Maybe if you are a foreigner, Latvian waitresses and waiters try their best, but I have experienced many “nice” attitudes in Riga that make you feel like you wish you had a machine gun.