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.
