Monumental!!

For our first month, we are staying at a flat on the edge of the old city of Riga (Vecrīga).  This means we often walk or run through the old city, the canal park (Bastejkalns), or near the Daugava River. The old city is compact, full of beautiful old churches and buildings, tricky-to-walk-on cobblestone streets, tiny alleyways, cafés, restaurants, and wandering tourists.  Yes, even in the gray, cold, and wet winter months, tourists are on the old city streets. I imagine as the weather warms, those streets will further fill, so we are grateful to be moving on to our new apartment (we've found an apartment!!) at the end of the month. 

Vecrīga skyline from the Kipsala area

A street in the old city, don't stumble on the cobblestones

One of my favorite views, looking toward the Old Bourse from Dom Square

Our newest game as we run or wander is to take in the monuments and give them a date of construction (your choices are the Soviet era, pre-Soviet era, or post-Soviet era).  It's not a challenging game, and Saadya sometimes plays along when I send the images to him on WhatsApp.  I know you are all waiting to play, so here goes with a few examples from the area of the canal parks.

Monument to Jānis Rainis

Did you think this one might be a famous Soviet leader?  Nope, this is Jānis Rainis, a famous Latvian writer, poet, and politician (the People's Poet) who was active in the 1905 Latvian revolution.  But if you were thinking Soviet era for the sculpture, you made the right guess; this one was unveiled in 1965.

Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly

With this bad boy, were you thinking, "oh, Napolean slept here too?"  de Tolly was a Field Marshall in the Russian army and the minister of war during Napoleon's expedition to Moscow. This is a copy of a statue unveiled in 1913 and then lost when it was removed in WWI. Did you say pre-Soviet? Well done!

Rūdolfs Blaumanis Monument

Once again, you may have thought this is an image of a famous Soviet leader but meet Rūdolfs Blaumanis, journalist and playwright and considered one of the greatest writers in Latvia.  Definitely erected in the Soviet era.

Alexander Pushkin

This is a tough one! Alexander Pushkin is a Russian poet with ties to Riga. The statue was gifted to the city of Riga by the city of Moscow in 2009 (post-Soviet!). I like seeing all the flowers left at its base and in June, for his birthday, we'll probably hear people sitting at his feet reading his poems.

Now I'll leave the canal parks and try out the monuments in the old city. Let me give you a few absolute favorites (Soviet style) that are also super famous landmarks (as in meet me at the Riflemen). This one is on Riflemen Square in the old city.

The Riflemen

Feeling a little Soviet? The Riflemen were Latvian fighters in the Russian Military during WWI. Some Latvians identify this as a communist statue, while others feel it commemorates Latvians who fought in WWI. Either way, these three far-off-looking soldiers evoke the Soviet Union more than anything else in the area.

Monument to the Fighters of 1905

This is the monument commemorating the 1905 Bloody Sunday events in Riga.  Latvians were supporting the workers of Russia by staging their own strike and making demands of the Tsar for greater autonomy. On January 13, the peaceful demonstrators were met by a Russian military force with a deadly outcome.  This is a decidedly Soviet statue with two proletarians hoisting a flag.

The most famous monument in Riga is the Freedom monument which I captured on one of our rare sunny days.  

Freedom Monument (Brīvības piemineklis)

This pre-Soviet monument is in the center of Riga on a large plaza that connects the old city to the area known as Centrs (where we are moving soon).  Look closely, and you'll notice two members of the Guard of Honor at its base.  These guards stand in absolute stillness even when approached by selfie-seeking tourists.  Once each half hour, they somberly march off from the base of the monument, march twice along each side, and then return to their posts.  The monument itself was built in the early 1930s to commemorate the soldiers killed during the Latvian War of Independence (1918–1920). It is one of Latvia's most important symbols of freedom and independence.  More than once during Soviet occupation, there were discussions about demolishing the structure, but Lady Liberty has been in this spot holding up three stars for years and isn't going anywhere soon.

How did you do in the game?  If anyone needs more, statues and monuments are abundant in this city and are a pretty great way to learn some history and mark the miles on our runs.