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curlycourland From my youth on I have saved many vivid recollections.
The first place which had the chance to really impress me, when I was a little 9-year-old girl, was Riga.
Now it might seem to my friends like something incomprehensible but it is true. And I'll try to explain this bizarre fact - born a few steps away from this city and even spending a short period of time as an inhabitant of this fairy place, I hadn't any remembrances about it by the time I visited it again after the long 8-year period.
Explanations are rather simple - my parents decided to leave for Ukraine and as often happens they forgot to ask my opinion.
:) I don't even have any photos from that time which could carry me back. All that I can remember is that there are many tasty bonbons, strange but pretty savoury cookies named piparcucas and it is also a place where my grandmother, grandfather and other kin lived, but some of them still were unfamiliar to me.
However, we shouldn't lament for that period of my childhood and will try to become acquainted with this fantabulous city together again.
The first place which had the chance to really impress me, when I was a little 9-year-old girl, was Riga.
Now it might seem to my friends like something incomprehensible but it is true. And I'll try to explain this bizarre fact - born a few steps away from this city and even spending a short period of time as an inhabitant of this fairy place, I hadn't any remembrances about it by the time I visited it again after the long 8-year period.
Explanations are rather simple - my parents decided to leave for Ukraine and as often happens they forgot to ask my opinion.
:) I don't even have any photos from that time which could carry me back. All that I can remember is that there are many tasty bonbons, strange but pretty savoury cookies named piparcucas and it is also a place where my grandmother, grandfather and other kin lived, but some of them still were unfamiliar to me.
However, we shouldn't lament for that period of my childhood and will try to become acquainted with this fantabulous city together again.
To start, here are a couple of words about history. Riga developed as a German town on both banks of the River Daugava very close to the Gulf of Riga. Actually, her first step on the road to becoming a capital of one of the European Union members was taken near the small tributary of the Daugava named the Ridzene which has unfortunately disappeared now. One day I asked my Uncle Michael, "Where is it now?"
"It is exactly under our home, - he laughed, - at present it is a subterranean stream running under the center of the city."
And those days I was trying to listen to its gentle murmur, which was impossible, as I've understood now, but was so likely for a young and naive girl.
As usual, there is some old legend about the founding of the city: in time long forgotten there was a strong man named Great Kristaps whose duty was to carry people across the river by his own boat. One dark and foggy night doing his usual job he heard a quiet weeping: it was a child crying, which he took across the river and let sleep in his cot. But the next morning, much to his surprise he found ... a chest full of golden coins. According to this legend, Riga was built on that money. Miraculous story, isn't it?
To be serious, Riga was first mentioned in historical chronicles in 1198. I remember again a beautiful sign made from copper or other red metal showing an old castle with crossed keys above and the date 1201. Later I recognized it as the emblem of Riga.
And the date indicated on it is not random - exactly in this year the German bishop Albrecht started to built the city near an existing merchant settlement which lay on a significant historic trading route, since the River Daugava was part of the famous "Viking Road" to Greece. Now you can only see the statue of the bishop - who in the Middle Ages decided to move his residence from Ikskile closer to the firth - in the yard of the Cathedral in the center of Old Riga.
I've told already that some symbols of this attractive city were intact in my memory from unconscious infancy till young yourth. And one of these symbols was that famous silhouette of a group of mysterious spires which is always depicted on a great number of postcards, booklets, and flyers. Now those spires lift the veil of their secrecy slightly and everyone can get to know their names - St. Peters Church, St. John's Church, St. Jacob's Cathedral and Dome Cathedral.
So now you understand why Riga is always slightly nostalgic for me.
Other memorible places for me include Baznicas (Church) street with her Cathedral of St. Gertrude; the cinemas Pioneris and Riga, where I loved to spend my time and had a chance to see my first stereoscopic movie (a real wonder for me at that time); the zoo and Mezhaparks with attractions; Bastion Mount soaring over the trees in the beautiful park with the city canal where I loved to feed pigeons, swans, ducks and sparrows. I also remember Lake Kish and the dense forest where we picked mushrooms and ate berries, whose variety could amaze any forester or botanist, believe me – there were wild raspberries and gooseberries, strawberries and bilberries, bog whortleberries and stone berries, haw and black ashberries, - its really difficult to itemize, not to mention to memorize them all!
Another strange occurrance with Riga and me - there are many things that I saw first there. I've already mentioned the stereo movie, and there was also a stratosphere balloon in the sky, a pink flamingo, pineapple and kiwi (can you believe it?!) and... the sea! Isn't it strange to see so many exotic things in a northern European country?
We have two seas in Ukraine, but it happend that I saw it first only in Jurmala - my own Baltic Sea, cold and fine, but beautiful, whose succiniferous dunes are surrounded by lofty pines. It was amazing to dip my hand into the wave, place it on the dune sand and then observe the motley mix of sand and amber bits that stuck to my palm.
I also like Art Nouveau presented in Alberta Street and Elisabethes Street. Experts of architecture consider Riga as a capital of Jugendstil and now Riga's grandiose collection of modern buildings is protected by UNESCO. I can't understand myself but up-to-date architecture attracted me that days not less than Riga's Art Nouveau or classicism, Gothic, etc. I liked to visit "Spartac" and "Pioneer" cinemas with its spacious and light lobby as well as "Riga" cinema with its grandeur and baroque decor, sombre in compare with "Spartac", but solemn. Besides "Spartac" was a stereomovies, I've mentioned it before.
And Riga's Central Market... Four former hangars for dirigibles were reconstructed to four roomy halls where peasants, farmers and fishmongers could offer fruits of their labour. Ah lamprey and eels, buns and cakes, berries and mushrooms! And cheeeese! Latvian cheese, slippery and fetid! No, it's good and flavoured, pleasant and delicious as I understand now :) But that time it threw me into confusion with its smell. Here you can read well-known story writen by Jerome K. Jerome about cheese and here you can become acquainted how one day cheese could help me to avoid some travelling problem.
"It is exactly under our home, - he laughed, - at present it is a subterranean stream running under the center of the city."
And those days I was trying to listen to its gentle murmur, which was impossible, as I've understood now, but was so likely for a young and naive girl.
As usual, there is some old legend about the founding of the city: in time long forgotten there was a strong man named Great Kristaps whose duty was to carry people across the river by his own boat. One dark and foggy night doing his usual job he heard a quiet weeping: it was a child crying, which he took across the river and let sleep in his cot. But the next morning, much to his surprise he found ... a chest full of golden coins. According to this legend, Riga was built on that money. Miraculous story, isn't it?
To be serious, Riga was first mentioned in historical chronicles in 1198. I remember again a beautiful sign made from copper or other red metal showing an old castle with crossed keys above and the date 1201. Later I recognized it as the emblem of Riga.
And the date indicated on it is not random - exactly in this year the German bishop Albrecht started to built the city near an existing merchant settlement which lay on a significant historic trading route, since the River Daugava was part of the famous "Viking Road" to Greece. Now you can only see the statue of the bishop - who in the Middle Ages decided to move his residence from Ikskile closer to the firth - in the yard of the Cathedral in the center of Old Riga.
I've told already that some symbols of this attractive city were intact in my memory from unconscious infancy till young yourth. And one of these symbols was that famous silhouette of a group of mysterious spires which is always depicted on a great number of postcards, booklets, and flyers. Now those spires lift the veil of their secrecy slightly and everyone can get to know their names - St. Peters Church, St. John's Church, St. Jacob's Cathedral and Dome Cathedral.
So now you understand why Riga is always slightly nostalgic for me.
Other memorible places for me include Baznicas (Church) street with her Cathedral of St. Gertrude; the cinemas Pioneris and Riga, where I loved to spend my time and had a chance to see my first stereoscopic movie (a real wonder for me at that time); the zoo and Mezhaparks with attractions; Bastion Mount soaring over the trees in the beautiful park with the city canal where I loved to feed pigeons, swans, ducks and sparrows. I also remember Lake Kish and the dense forest where we picked mushrooms and ate berries, whose variety could amaze any forester or botanist, believe me – there were wild raspberries and gooseberries, strawberries and bilberries, bog whortleberries and stone berries, haw and black ashberries, - its really difficult to itemize, not to mention to memorize them all!
Another strange occurrance with Riga and me - there are many things that I saw first there. I've already mentioned the stereo movie, and there was also a stratosphere balloon in the sky, a pink flamingo, pineapple and kiwi (can you believe it?!) and... the sea! Isn't it strange to see so many exotic things in a northern European country?
We have two seas in Ukraine, but it happend that I saw it first only in Jurmala - my own Baltic Sea, cold and fine, but beautiful, whose succiniferous dunes are surrounded by lofty pines. It was amazing to dip my hand into the wave, place it on the dune sand and then observe the motley mix of sand and amber bits that stuck to my palm.
I also like Art Nouveau presented in Alberta Street and Elisabethes Street. Experts of architecture consider Riga as a capital of Jugendstil and now Riga's grandiose collection of modern buildings is protected by UNESCO. I can't understand myself but up-to-date architecture attracted me that days not less than Riga's Art Nouveau or classicism, Gothic, etc. I liked to visit "Spartac" and "Pioneer" cinemas with its spacious and light lobby as well as "Riga" cinema with its grandeur and baroque decor, sombre in compare with "Spartac", but solemn. Besides "Spartac" was a stereomovies, I've mentioned it before.
And Riga's Central Market... Four former hangars for dirigibles were reconstructed to four roomy halls where peasants, farmers and fishmongers could offer fruits of their labour. Ah lamprey and eels, buns and cakes, berries and mushrooms! And cheeeese! Latvian cheese, slippery and fetid! No, it's good and flavoured, pleasant and delicious as I understand now :) But that time it threw me into confusion with its smell. Here you can read well-known story writen by Jerome K. Jerome about cheese and here you can become acquainted how one day cheese could help me to avoid some travelling problem.
