Thursday, September 09, 2010
Visiting Latvia, poorest of European Union's countries
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Can a city with an unemployment rate of 9.5% (going up) learn anything from another, with the rate at 19%? (going down)? I think so, having spent a week in the capital of Latvia, a country of 2.3 million people, nearly half o them living in Riga, known as the Paris of North Europe. Riga is beautiful, the pavements absolutely clean, with picturesque cobblestone streets, ancient churches and medieval guild buildings, with city fortification ruins dating back to the original Templar Knight founding in 1200s. That was when the heathen Lets, Cours and other Balts were Christianized and put into serfdom. But they survived Polish, Swedish, German and Russian suzerainties, and kept the Hanseatic city intact, until in 1992 the Soviets permitted the rebirth of a free Latvia (born 1919, intermittently occupied by USSR and Germany 1940-92). It is now a World Heritage tourist destination, containing the best Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) examples. In 17th century the forest-rich Duchy of Courland was also Europe’s master builder of ships and acquired colonies in Gambia and Tobago (swallowed up by Britain within decades.)
We were there during the celebration of Riga’s 810th anniversary, with thousands of visitors wandering through the streets, buying food and memorabilia at stands set the cobbled streets .Besides cleanliness, it was remarkable not to see any walking sticks. I worried about the short life span (true), until a distant relative, a remarkable physician and great-grandmother, explained that during the post-WWII Soviet occupation of the Baltics, 1944-1992, no transportation and access aids for the elderly, such as the American ADA , were provided for the elderly, making downtown virtually inaccessible. Now, as part of the recession relief, tramways, streetcars and buses are being slowly equipped. There are even pedestrian traffic signals that count down both walk and wait time, showing seconds remaining.
What about other recession relief? Well, the country, nearly the poorest in the EU, lost 52% of its GDP in 20009, which caused an upset in the election of government and severe teeth-clenching reductions in the pay of civil service employees. Latvians, technologically adept – in 190 40s Riga’s engineers invented the Minox spy camera, eventually distributed by a German firm - are actively doing development work. In my own extended family there is a project of finding worldwide market for a limestone removal chemical that protects bathrooms as well as building pipes, and other enterprising undertakings.
This brings up the entrepreneurial aspects of recession. In the US unemployment is growing, but so are entrepreneurial projects, also often done below the line, off the books, that might spring loose soon. The statistics for such should be available, to counteract to bad “on the books” job news. Come on, Mr. Obama.
What about the working class Latvians? Well, some who have lost jobs in the collapse of the economy due to overspending and exuberant construction work – there’s much unused housing, just like in the US - huddle around their pension earning seniors. A young mother in my extended family, who studied in the US, also has opened an afternoon English Language school. and an 18-yr old found a family connected advertising photographer’s job (she also bakes a promising great tiramisu).
There entrepreneurial efforts will have some effect in this small country trying to attract foreign investment that would take advantage of an educated (99.8% literacy) population. Meanwhile, foreign investors are buying some beach land – west of Riga is Jurmala, a centuries old 30 km beach community, with another less developed 120 km beyond it, of undeveloped white sand beaches, and a Riga Bay with water so salt free, that the legend speaks of a windsurfer lost there, who survived three days drinking sea water.. Traveling the shore road, one finds picturesque small communities, as well as an entrepreneurial fish merchant who has a roadside sign directing travelers to his smoker in the dense woods (important for Europe's oxigen supply), where he comes daily to smoke herring, mackerels and trout, delicious but expensive. Along the road are parked cars, and one sees women and men with small baskets, collectors of chanterelles, a tasty mushroom that springs up after rain, and some opportunistic greenmarket sellers with jugs of the yellow delicacy, fresh tomatoes and peas. The vegetables are good for the diced Rasol salad, a family favorite potato, egg and mixed vegetable creation, in homemade mayo dressing.
Latvia is an expensive country, the currency, lats, is worth $2. Hotel prices are on Euros, worth about $1.25, and prices are quoted in lats. One gets a false sense of security, pricing meals in Riga, until the reasonable meal’s true price is grasped. There are elegant restaurants in the tourist area – Otto Schwartz’s in the Hotel de Rome, Chalk Street Gates (Kalku Varti) where you can spend hundreds, all in sight of the great Statue of Liberty that neither the Soviets nor the Germans dared to pull down. In the commercial center, just past the monument, near the central parks, there is a huge Vermanitis self-service basement, where you fill your tray with choice items at half price, appreciated by all, poor or rich. As for the really poor, there are inventive beggars in the tourist area, posing for money, a gold-painted Greek sculpture and a storybook tramp, and a grandma who spins to her tape-recoded tunes; also appealing children, and street musicians, a girl duo on flute and harp, an accordionist pair, also six gypsy boys in dresses and hats playing American pop (poorly), and outdoor café groups playing old rock (good).
Markets for folkloric goods abound, best values are amber, knit scarves and mittens and linen table cloths. Genuine amber necklaces, product of fossilized pine resin, are certified by the sellers, but look for beauty, not papers. Better priced amber goods are at the Sigulda caves, an hour by car (all parts of Latvia are reachable in day trips) and Turaida, a renovated castle, in the Gauja River Canyon, beautiful hollow park deep below the surface. Another excursion from Riga, southwards, is to Rundale Palace, the summer home of Tsarina Anna’s , (former Duchess of Kurland) favorite, the Ernst Johan von Biron ducal residence , built by Francesco Bartholomeo Rastrelli (1700-72), the Italian architect who also built the Hermitage Winter Palace in St Petersburg for Elizabeth, daughter of Tsar Peter the Great, who Europeanized Russia in the early 1700s.There is also a da Vinci Code type legend about Peter who divorced and put into a monastery his wife of long years, to marry a former maid of Pastor Ernst Gluck, the translator of the Bible into Latvian. The legend states that Maria Skowronska, later Czarina Catherine I, had overheard Gluck who may have been a secret Knight Templar/Baltic Knight member, discussing the jewels that the Jesus and Mary Magdalene family (Holy Grail) protection group had hidden near Aluksne, another beauty spot, and held marriage as the prize for revealing the hiding place of the treasure. Peter used the jewels to p ay for his palaces in St. Petersburg, and the two surviving of their nine children ascended to the thrones in Russia and France .
Alas, Latvia is also a tragic country. In WWII it 10% of its population died, about 200,000 nationals, fighting or killed by both sides, including 70,000 Jewish Holocaust victims, murdered by German special troops and their local para-military collaborators. The current Jewish population of 10,000 is well established. Another 200,000 Latvians escaped abroad, fleeing Communist terror. Another 50,000-plus were deported to gulags, including 2,000 Jews. No monuments can cover the tragedies.
Can a city with an unemployment rate of 9.5% (going up) learn anything from another, with the rate at 19%? (going down)? I think so, having spent a week in the capital of Latvia, a country of 2.3 million people, nearly half o them living in Riga, known as the Paris of North Europe. Riga is beautiful, the pavements absolutely clean, with picturesque cobblestone streets, ancient churches and medieval guild buildings, with city fortification ruins dating back to the original Templar Knight founding in 1200s. That was when the heathen Lets, Cours and other Balts were Christianized and put into serfdom. But they survived Polish, Swedish, German and Russian suzerainties, and kept the Hanseatic city intact, until in 1992 the Soviets permitted the rebirth of a free Latvia (born 1919, intermittently occupied by USSR and Germany 1940-92). It is now a World Heritage tourist destination, containing the best Jugendstil (Art Nouveau) examples. In 17th century the forest-rich Duchy of Courland was also Europe’s master builder of ships and acquired colonies in Gambia and Tobago (swallowed up by Britain within decades.)
We were there during the celebration of Riga’s 810th anniversary, with thousands of visitors wandering through the streets, buying food and memorabilia at stands set the cobbled streets .Besides cleanliness, it was remarkable not to see any walking sticks. I worried about the short life span (true), until a distant relative, a remarkable physician and great-grandmother, explained that during the post-WWII Soviet occupation of the Baltics, 1944-1992, no transportation and access aids for the elderly, such as the American ADA , were provided for the elderly, making downtown virtually inaccessible. Now, as part of the recession relief, tramways, streetcars and buses are being slowly equipped. There are even pedestrian traffic signals that count down both walk and wait time, showing seconds remaining.
What about other recession relief? Well, the country, nearly the poorest in the EU, lost 52% of its GDP in 20009, which caused an upset in the election of government and severe teeth-clenching reductions in the pay of civil service employees. Latvians, technologically adept – in 190 40s Riga’s engineers invented the Minox spy camera, eventually distributed by a German firm - are actively doing development work. In my own extended family there is a project of finding worldwide market for a limestone removal chemical that protects bathrooms as well as building pipes, and other enterprising undertakings.
This brings up the entrepreneurial aspects of recession. In the US unemployment is growing, but so are entrepreneurial projects, also often done below the line, off the books, that might spring loose soon. The statistics for such should be available, to counteract to bad “on the books” job news. Come on, Mr. Obama.
What about the working class Latvians? Well, some who have lost jobs in the collapse of the economy due to overspending and exuberant construction work – there’s much unused housing, just like in the US - huddle around their pension earning seniors. A young mother in my extended family, who studied in the US, also has opened an afternoon English Language school. and an 18-yr old found a family connected advertising photographer’s job (she also bakes a promising great tiramisu).
There entrepreneurial efforts will have some effect in this small country trying to attract foreign investment that would take advantage of an educated (99.8% literacy) population. Meanwhile, foreign investors are buying some beach land – west of Riga is Jurmala, a centuries old 30 km beach community, with another less developed 120 km beyond it, of undeveloped white sand beaches, and a Riga Bay with water so salt free, that the legend speaks of a windsurfer lost there, who survived three days drinking sea water.. Traveling the shore road, one finds picturesque small communities, as well as an entrepreneurial fish merchant who has a roadside sign directing travelers to his smoker in the dense woods (important for Europe's oxigen supply), where he comes daily to smoke herring, mackerels and trout, delicious but expensive. Along the road are parked cars, and one sees women and men with small baskets, collectors of chanterelles, a tasty mushroom that springs up after rain, and some opportunistic greenmarket sellers with jugs of the yellow delicacy, fresh tomatoes and peas. The vegetables are good for the diced Rasol salad, a family favorite potato, egg and mixed vegetable creation, in homemade mayo dressing.
Latvia is an expensive country, the currency, lats, is worth $2. Hotel prices are on Euros, worth about $1.25, and prices are quoted in lats. One gets a false sense of security, pricing meals in Riga, until the reasonable meal’s true price is grasped. There are elegant restaurants in the tourist area – Otto Schwartz’s in the Hotel de Rome, Chalk Street Gates (Kalku Varti) where you can spend hundreds, all in sight of the great Statue of Liberty that neither the Soviets nor the Germans dared to pull down. In the commercial center, just past the monument, near the central parks, there is a huge Vermanitis self-service basement, where you fill your tray with choice items at half price, appreciated by all, poor or rich. As for the really poor, there are inventive beggars in the tourist area, posing for money, a gold-painted Greek sculpture and a storybook tramp, and a grandma who spins to her tape-recoded tunes; also appealing children, and street musicians, a girl duo on flute and harp, an accordionist pair, also six gypsy boys in dresses and hats playing American pop (poorly), and outdoor café groups playing old rock (good).
Markets for folkloric goods abound, best values are amber, knit scarves and mittens and linen table cloths. Genuine amber necklaces, product of fossilized pine resin, are certified by the sellers, but look for beauty, not papers. Better priced amber goods are at the Sigulda caves, an hour by car (all parts of Latvia are reachable in day trips) and Turaida, a renovated castle, in the Gauja River Canyon, beautiful hollow park deep below the surface. Another excursion from Riga, southwards, is to Rundale Palace, the summer home of Tsarina Anna’s , (former Duchess of Kurland) favorite, the Ernst Johan von Biron ducal residence , built by Francesco Bartholomeo Rastrelli (1700-72), the Italian architect who also built the Hermitage Winter Palace in St Petersburg for Elizabeth, daughter of Tsar Peter the Great, who Europeanized Russia in the early 1700s.There is also a da Vinci Code type legend about Peter who divorced and put into a monastery his wife of long years, to marry a former maid of Pastor Ernst Gluck, the translator of the Bible into Latvian. The legend states that Maria Skowronska, later Czarina Catherine I, had overheard Gluck who may have been a secret Knight Templar/Baltic Knight member, discussing the jewels that the Jesus and Mary Magdalene family (Holy Grail) protection group had hidden near Aluksne, another beauty spot, and held marriage as the prize for revealing the hiding place of the treasure. Peter used the jewels to p ay for his palaces in St. Petersburg, and the two surviving of their nine children ascended to the thrones in Russia and France .
Alas, Latvia is also a tragic country. In WWII it 10% of its population died, about 200,000 nationals, fighting or killed by both sides, including 70,000 Jewish Holocaust victims, murdered by German special troops and their local para-military collaborators. The current Jewish population of 10,000 is well established. Another 200,000 Latvians escaped abroad, fleeing Communist terror. Another 50,000-plus were deported to gulags, including 2,000 Jews. No monuments can cover the tragedies.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 11:11 AM 
