Riga. Nostalgia for the future
In the evening of Vezriga – Old Riga – turns into a memory. Hours at eight from the square at the monument of freedom go merchants with flowers, carry buckets with delicate pink, purple, blue bouquets, – Nowhere in the whole world there are no such colors from distant childhood, nowhere more fragrant peas does not boil with such multi-colored clouds. Then the sun is reluctant, leaving the pink, purple, blue divorces in the sky. Then he drops the night, gradually drives out street fun in clubs and restaurants, watching how they roam the streets in gray stripes and gray in gray stains of the cat.
In old riga a lot of cats. Starting from the famous Square House of Schaeffer, on the roof of which two cast-iron cats were frozen, arming the back, and ending with the lazy packs living in narrow streets of Vezrigi. The flock feeds the elderly man of an indefinite sex, the cats are seen behind him, and the black statues of the cat in the house are peakily silent. With these cast-iron animals, one of the countless Riga legends is connected: they say these cats – creatures are evil, forced their creator to fall from the roof, and the homeowner involved in the scandal. A certain merchant ordered to establish cats on the house, and their tails were to be addressed to the big merchant guild – whether it was expelled from this guild, or on the contrary, they did not want to take it there. The scandal broke out serious, and the cats were only quietly laughed in the mustache. But they had to turn to not to shake with their tails a big guild.
Legend of Giant
Legends in Riga no less than cats. Tell, for example, that the city originated due to the Giant Kristap, who lived on the banks of the Daugava River. Growth in a large crystap was almost two and a half meters, and they wanted to move to the otherside, he calmly endured on his shoulders. Once rarely at night he heard a children’s crying river. Having traveled through Daugava, Kristap found a child, he moved him across the river and sheltered in his cave, and the next morning discovered that the baby disappeared, and in the cave lies pile of gold coins. For this money, Kristap built the first bridge over Daugava, and after his death the city was built.
Crystap, he is Christopher – the Holy, who is considered in Catholicism in case of illness. The statue of the Giant was wounded at the end of the 18th century and managed to stand in different places of Riga, including in the Riga Museum of History. It was believed that the Giant relies from diseases.
Two types of Riga
The name of His Riga received from Riga Riga, or Rigen. The city founded in 1201 by the German knights-Crusaders who built the fortress and founded Livonian Order at Western Dvina (She Daugava). This castle was destroyed, rebuilt again, once again destroyed, rebuilt, and, quite naturally, now the residence of the Latvian president.
There are two ways to see Riga as it should. You can climb the observation platform of St. Peter’s Cathedral (when you enter the elevator, he shudders, as if he would be) and from there to look at the city, posing herself with a vane in the wind. Here, very close, the Dome Cathedral, standing here since the XIII century. Won there, "Three brothers", Three houses that stand here many centuries. Oldest, "White brother", Built in the XV century, and the younger – in XVIII. You can see both the river and the building of the Academy of Sciences, so similar to Moscow highlights, and a skyscraper under construction "Sunny stone" – Office building on another bank of the river, a glass broken spiral, because of which a serious scandal flared out: it is believed that with her appearance the usual appearance of the city will change. Huge central market hangars (they were built from billets of hangars for airships left by German soldiers during the First World War), to the left – the greens of boulevards.
And you can not climb anywhere, walking around the city, listening like Latvian speech interfere with Russian, inhale Riga smells, remember the classic Soviet films, from "Seventeen moments spring" (Berlin, of course, was filmed in Riga) to unhurried detectives from the life of English nobility (the English cinema to know what Banionis went through these streets, and the directors did not think at all about the fact that in England the left-sided movement).
Bypassing the old town – it’s fast, everything is close here. Look at the newly restored house of blackhead. Chernogol Guild is just an union of unmarried foreign merchants, and the Gothic building of the XIV century has become their property in 1713, and in 1941 it was destroyed. Newly rebuilt the house of the Blackheads in 2001, to the 800th anniversary of the city.
You can look into museums – for example, the Museum of Old Car, where Maxim Gorky Machine is exhibited, or the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia. It’s right at the Blackhead House, two steps from the monument to Latvian shooters. Go to the Military Museum, in a plump powder tower near the barracks. In the barracks now offices and shops, mannequins look out of the windows. Look at the church of St. Jacob, the very, the bell of which is called "Bell of unfortunate sinners" and, according to legend, calls, if the wrong wife passes by. By the way, the monument of freedom sculptor Carlis Hall Lepils with the most famous at the time of the Riga anemone named Mild. He pissed her on folk donations in 1931 – a woman holding three stars in his hands (they joked that it was "Monument to Cognac", and in fact – three Latvian provinces). Mildo wanted to blow up the Germans during the Second World War (still, one and a half tons of copper!), then, in the late 40s, the government decided to put a monument to Stalin instead of freedom. It’s good that Mildo’s sculptor faith mukhin.
Good walk through the boulevards – past the famous hotel "Riga", Where, they say, the first guest was Khrushchev. And be sure to go to Alberta Street, where at home in Art Nouveau style will look at you with the eyes of stone statues and bas-reliefs. Most of these houses built Mikhail Eisenstein, Father’s Father Sergey Eisenstein Father. Take a look in the entrance – in each of them there is a legend, and the tile of such a saturated color is that yesterday’s sunset can envy him.
Observations
The main birds in this city are not thick seagulls, flying here from the sea, and not pigeons, waiting for handouts from tourists. Home Bird Riga – Rooster. With the first crude rooster, any evil melts like smoke. Riga freezes – all the cock figures are completely, and it is impossible to go through the house area, without having heard how some guide is familiar to the main Riga flora. "The rooster on the spice of the house cathedral on the one hand is golden, with another black, and if he turns to the city of black sideways, it means that the wind blows towards the sea, and the ships will not be able to go to the port, and if gold. "
Flluggers at the Dome Cathedral, on the Church of St. Peter, on the Church of St. John, they quit, catch the sea wind, are watching Riga’s life. Watch here there is. Many at home in Old Riga have not yet been renovated, and in one of them empty windows are closed with pictures: flowers and ghosts. Any passerby, turning on this window, briefly becomes transparent.
Not far from the monument to freedom dancing an unclear beautiful lady. Without music, herself herself singing something. Opposite the monument to the Bremen Musicians (among them, of course, there is a cat, and a rooster) are sitting girls, playing a guitar something from rock-classics, money earn money. Around the angle, five meters from them, – a man, also with a guitar, and his repertoire is more foul. Tourists throw coins. On Latvian coins in one lat, fish is depicted, and on double-year – cow. But these coins are rarely getting out street musicians – only trifle, Santila. Money in Latvia Serious, knowledgeable price.
But souvenirs on tourist trails can be bought cheap. Amber decorations, leather wallets, notebooks in leather bindings – as in Soviet times, from Latvia is customary to carry amber and skin. And also, of course, edible souvenirs: Riga balm (sold in any supermarket), the famous black bread with Tmin (loaf two weeks does not taste), cheese, also with Tmina, and a Cuka Cucasa, Cardamon, Carnation, Cinnamon, Ginger , coriander and some other spices whose secret will with pleasure will reveal any Latvian hostess. Anyway, every time the Pip Cocas goes out different. Products from this test are considered to be christmas treats, so before Merry Christmas baking in Riga is sold much more than amber.
Peasant breakfast
In general, for lovers to eat Riga – one of the most generous cities in Europe. Here you can find almost any kitchen and almost any price level. There are also Scandinavian, and Yamica restaurants (soups and curry in Coco Loco, although not so sharp, as they could be, still give fire to the Riga coolness). And lovers of Japanese or Italian cuisine can generally settle somewhere in the old town. Who hurts on Russian home food – try to go to Slavu, cheap, but very high quality place. In Velvets, where they give something conventionally French and conditionally Italian (but at the same time delicious), it’s good to sit on the street, right in the century of the old city, on the veranda, seized with yellow fragrant bells.
But the most famous restaurant Riga – Vincents, on Elizabetes Street. This will lead to all important Riga guests, from Elton John to Mstislav Rostropovich, from Pierre Richard to Prince Charles. The dishes in the menu are a bit, but they are affecting ingenuity (for example, a marine fillet, wrapped in Prutto, with truffles sauce), and decorated in such a way that I want to immediately take a picture of memory. Business lunch is cheap, but from drinks Be sure to try juices, – it is unlikely that somewhere else on this earth you will have the opportunity to choose between pear-ginger, watermelon-mint, juice of eight vegetables (including endivia) and drink, more similar to the tight wine, with beet juice and an obvious hint of garlic.
Latvian cuisine itself is pretty heavy, Latvians love the simple peasant food – like pies with a sippet or smoked fish. And more cheese cookies (of course, with Tmin, beloved Latvian spice), beer soup, Bobert – semolina porridge baked with whipped squirrels. Everyone who in childhood was not in Sochi, but in Jurmala, remember "Peasant breakfast", Something like an omelet with potatoes, onions and core.
Classic combination for Latvian cuisine – potatoes and cottage cheese. Dairy products could generally be placed on the coat of arms of Latvia: the most Latvian dish – a praath, something like porridge with cottage cheese and spokeshes, as well as with potato mashed potatoes and boiled fish skipped through a meat grinder. All this should also stand in a cold place to "mature". Food for amateur.
This is the most lovers of Latvian cuisine – a straight road to the entertainment center Lido. And not only them: Lido is one of the local attractions. This is a huge hub (by the way, in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest hut in Europe), and inside – a multi-level holiday. Swedish tables filled with food, seem endless. You can go to the beer where the welded beer is served here. And the children not to do that they are bored for beer, you can send to the playground with attractions.
Just drink a seagull in APSARA TEAHOUSE, here will have to choose from 70 varieties. Empire chocolate is best in Emihla Gustava Shokolahde, inside a large bookstore. Chocolate is doing here in the form of anything, from a black and white football ball to a cozy bear, which I don’t want to bite, he looks so ukrusive. And Kofemanam in Riga has always been rapid.
Clubs in Riga a lot, but go to the club "Nobody writes to the colonel" (Pulkvedim Neviens Neraksta). The place is gloomy, but the music is good, and the local DJ, they say, left his native Ibiza, married the Riga Baryshne, and she got. And maybe this is a local legend – one of those who live in Riga streets.
Vope Laba!
If you are in Riga for a while, then, most likely, you will see only old Riga and the Central District. But there are still Purvziems, where they live mostly Russians, and Bolderia, one of the most distant from the center of the city, where, by the way, the 24th Meridian intersects with the 57th parallel. Intersects itself and intersects, stands a small column, trying to draw passersby attention to this fact. And there is still Moscow Forestadt, Tornakalns, Agenskals, there are, they say, secret underground moves under Riga, there is a sea – how can you come to Riga and not to visit the Riga seaside? Coast from here half-hour drive.
If you are in Riga for a while, then you will come here again. To hear "Labdien" (Good day) and "Vope Laba" (all the best), eat bread with Tmin, go through the bridge Riga. On these streets it is easy to forget Ibiza and Berlin, and Jamaica.
Tribes are knocking, proudly look at anywhere in houses in anticipation of repair, random gull shouts on tin cocks. Riga. As in childhood. Forever and ever.
