Looking for roots in Riga

July 17, 2010

After Sandi and Bill left on Tuesday, we took off on Friday for Riga Latvia. Ron’s father’s family immigrated from Riga to the US via Scotland. He has long wanted to go to the lands of his ancestors so off we went. We were thoroughly charmed by Riga. For starters we had been in a two week heat wave in TBS. Riga was 15-20 degrees cooler. We stayed near Old Town, in a wonderful old art nouveau hotel. The hotel had been apartments and the story goes that a man taught classes in the building and decided he wanted to buy it and did. He lived there with his family until they had to leave and go to Sweden because of the Nazis. Years later he returned with his family to visit Riga, post communism, and was walking in the neighborhood and realized he was near his old apartment house. They found it and ultimately the building was returned to him. His family has converted in into a hotel and runs it now. The interior in decorated in a Swedish style, quite pleasing but austere. It was reasonably priced and that included breakfast and dinner. We arrived in Riga at 9:30 a.m. and went to the hotel and checked in. Then we went around the corner to get breakfast and explore our neighborhood which turned out to have beaucoup art nouveau buildings that had been fully restored. Riga’s collection of art nouveau buildings has been recognized by UNESCO as unparalleled anywhere in the world. Needless to say we did a lot of ‘wow, look at that, oh my look at this’, and on and on. It was spectacular. See photos attached. Afterwards we wandered over to the Old City passing through two parks along the way. We were a short 10-12 minute walk away from Old Town. What a thrill. The entire place has been restored. Cobble stoned streets, freshly painted building, incredible details on the buildings. It was a feast for our eyes.

One of the oldest buildings was a cathedral built in 1211 which has endured many changes since then. We got to see the ‘guts’ of the tower clock. The organ here was the largest in the world when it was built in Germany in 1884. I don’t remember what we visited each day or the order but here is a list of some of the things we did see in the three days we had there. The Museum of Riga’s History and Navigation was founded in 1773. It was interesting and quite varied in its contents.

The Three Brothers are a row of buildings covering three distinct architectural styles. The oldest of the three was built in the 15th century and is Riga’s oldest stone building; the second and third buildings were built in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. We walked through the Swedish Gate, the sole remnant of the eight city gates built in 1698. The Cat’s House is an art nouveau building with two black cats poised on top of the roof. The story goes that the merchant who owned the building was refused entrance into the Great Guild because he was Latvian and membership was reserved for Germans only. In retaliation he put two black cats with arched backs and tails up positioning them so their backsides faced the guild hall. After a lengthy court battle the merchant eventually gained entrance into the guild and turned the cats around.

We visited the House of the Blackheads, one of Riga’s most impressive reconstruction projects. It was originally built in 1334 for the city’s guilds. Over time, the Blackheads, a guild of unmarried foreign merchants, became the sole occupants. Their name derives from their patron, St Maurice (who was often depicted as a Moor) and they were known for their riotous parties. The ground floor was occupied by shops, while the guildhall was on the first floor. The step gabled Dutch Renaissance façade was added in the late 16th century, the astronomical clock in 1622 and the Hanseatic emblems and four figures (Neptune, Mercury, Unity and Peace) in 1896. The building was devastated by bombings in1941. The current structure dates from 1999. We enjoyed touring this building and were impressed with the reconstruction. We also went through the Mentzendorff House, built in 1695 as the premises for an apothecary. It was extensively restored in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It is now a museum devoted to the life of Riga’s merchant class in the 17th and 18th centuries. Each room including a saloon, kitchen and dancing hall is decorated in period style.

On our last day we went to the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (1890’s to present). This building was formerly a church and is the oldest surviving stone building. It was built in 1208. We really enjoyed seeing the high end crafts by Latvian artists: wall hangings, rugs, light fixtures, weavings, wood carvings, ceramics, etc. Our final stop was at the Museum of Jews in Latvia. This was a small three room museum with documents and photos depicting the Jewish community in Latvia which began in 16th century. There was a photograph of an L. Bergman, a soldier who fought for Latvian independence. Ron’s father’s name was Macks L. Bergman…Ron got the name of a local woman who does family history research and emailed her to see what she might be able to tell us about his grandfather and grandmother who immigrated to the US via Glasgow in the late 1800’s. She has responded and said she had a ‘thread’ and would be in touch with Ron soon. It was a super trip with beautiful things to see, weather that was pleasant (we had a two and a half week heat wave of 100+ temps in TBS) and great food. We managed to work in a nap or rest period each day so we balanced our ‘tourists on speed’ with ‘PMB’ (park my butt).

Our plane departed at midnight on Sunday. When we checked in we discovered we had made a mistake with our online booking and had clicked on Sunday the 18th not the 11th. Unfortunately the plane was overbooked and no seats were available, EXCEPT for business class! We got to buy some very expensive tickets home. I had envisioned seat that fully reclined but alas it was not to be. Because they had overbooked the plane and had changed planes (different size) they spend one hour post-take off time trying to seat everyone. So they squeezed the excess passengers into business class by removing the consoles between all the seats except ours. Obviously we were the only one with business class tickets as we were the only ones served a meal. They changed our seats twice during this period of chaos. And our seats did not fully recline. Bummer. We arrived home an hour late, 5:00 a.m. The fell into bed and Ron got up at 10:00 and headed to work. OY!