Lettland, Latvia (part 1)

On very short notice, I ended up going to Latvia last week to represent Earth Charter at Latvia's first Science Festival, held at Daugavpils University. I flew out of Stockholm very early Sunday morning and was able to spend a few hours in Riga, the Latvian capital, before the long drive south to Daugavpils. The people at Daugavpils U. arranged for me to meet up with Maria, a faculty member's daughter studying in Riga. She graciously showed me around the city in the biting cold weather. We spent the two hours walking quickly and hopping in and out of coffee houses for warm drinks. Riga was charming and colorful, and would have been even more so in the summertime. The old town is pretty small, with cobblestones and narrow, winding streets. It was actually a bit of a culture shock coming from Stockholm, where everyone speaks English, to Latvia, where I needed to make a considerably greater effort to get by.

Maria pointed out a beautiful Anglican Church from the mid 19th c. It seemed to me a bit odd to find an old Anglican Church in a country that was under czarist Russia at the time, so I spent some time there checking it out. Apparently, Riga was (maybe still is?) quite an active port town on the Baltic, and so many British sailors had descended upon it that someone applied to the Czar for permission to build the church. And the Czar granted that permission to further stimulate trade. I wrote my very last college paper (for my historical construction of American manhood class) on Antebellum reformers in American cities who, during the same period this church was built, were busy constructing seamen's bethels up and down the American coasts. So, I definitely thought the Anglican Church was cooler than Maria did. I'm sure you do too.

As I swung back through Riga Wednesday, on my way home, I managed to get to the Museum of the Russian Occupation, 1940-1991 (how's that for a name?). I loved the building - it was designed to look like old communist block architecture with a contemporary edge. I never really studied the history of that period, so if you are like me, here is the long and the short of it: Latvia got screwed. Again and again. They finally received independence from Russia after WW1, built up their own state, and then Stalin marched back in, in 1940. Then the Nazis invaded. The Soviets counter-invaded. And they just kept sending people to the Gulag. The museum was great, though. I particularly enjoyed their recreation of a Gulag barracks.

Have you read "Everything is Illuminated"? You should. If not, here is the basic premise: a young American man returns to his grandparents' Eastern European homeland on a "heritage tour," guided by an older driver who speaks no English, and his 20something grandson, whose broken English provides for great comic relief. Their travels together create the effect of a comedy of errors, with miscommunications all around. The American means well, but his actions - like his vegetarianism and carsickness - are derided by the grandfather, whose comments are then mistranslated by the grandson. The American basically has no idea what is going on. I felt, to a very small extent, that I had been plopped down in the middle of this novel. I was picked up at the airport by a driver from Daugavpils who spoke no English, and his 14 yr old granddaughter, who had only taken a year or so at school. We spent almost the entire day together, except when I was with Maria, and for most of that time, I had no idea what was happening until it was over. I followed the direct commands the 14 yr old could give ("now we sit," "now we eat") and tried to act as friendly and undemanding as possible. At times, I thought the 14 yr old and I were really bonding, and at others, I wasn't sure she understood anything I said. Again, much more challenging than life in Sweden. A welcome change, for a few days.