Our apartment is in the city center. This is a walking city. At night there are still a few parking spaces available on the street – unheard of in San Francisco – though I think this is partially due to the off-street parking provided behind apartments buildings. There are multiple shops in easy walking distance in all directions, oftentimes targeting the same clientele. Along the road on the edge of the park near the Freedom Monument (where foreign dignitaries of neo-liberal states dutifully lay wreaths to honor the downfall of the Soviet reign, even though the monument is really for the dead soldiers from the 1918-1920 Latvian War of Independence) there is a long row of enclosed kiosks for selling flowers. As an American used to the consolidation of the “free market” into massive corporate entities, I am surprised to realize that each is run independently. There are some malls here but the scale of the individual shops is much smaller than the super-sized super stores adjoined in an island of asphalt parking spots by the highway on the edge of Chubbuck or whatever bedroom community has been conjoined with the major “city” sprawling over perfectly good agricultural land - these are pedestrian malls.
The Russians seem to be in the majority of the merchant class. Don’t know if this is a holdover from the Soviet days when Russian speaking émigrés to the Baltic nations were given priority over native speakers or not. Gypsy musicians serenade us with accordion and brass. Walking along the Daugava River with seasonal lighting hanging from trees like art installations that reflect upon the frozen water I am reminded of the final Jeopardy answer “The Paris of the Baltics”, though I have never been to the City of Light and am only imagining what it must be like.
We haven’t lived in a proper city for a long time. Tacoma was a small city that never really got over not being Seattle. We escaped from L.A. fifteen years ago, and it has no clue what a pedestrian is. We were laughed at when we first arrived and asked “where do people walk?” To go shopping one drives to another city, carefully remembering the aisle number where the car was parked. To go across the street to another mall, the car is retrieved and driven a few hundred yards to yet another (hopefully) remembered parking area. San Pedro, traditional home to longshoremen working the LA Harbor, still reveals a bit of its blue collar heritage and some still celebrate the memory of Joe Hill and the Wobblies on Liberty Hill but walking was not much encouraged there either. I guess that is why San Pedro’s famous sons War sang, “all my friends are low-riders”.
San Francisco was a good walking city and we really enjoyed our Sunday afternoon walks from our Sunset flat through Golden Gate Park, to the Marina, past Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach and China Town. If you got tired you could always hop on a bus to get back. Unlike LA, to go shopping one drove (or took public transport) to a different neighborhood – not a different city. Still, we lived in the more bedroom neighborhoods, not the City Center so our experience was different than being here in the center of Riga.
I wonder, if I was coming from Manhattan, would I notice that the pedestrian traffic doesn’t politely yield to each other or stay to the right in our traditional “driving lanes” but, instead, dart into any available opening in an attempt to reach one’s goal more efficiently. Is the nearly universal fast pace a characteristic of the Baltic or typical of any major city where walking is a major mode of transportation…….or is it just an attempt to walk fast enough to create enough body heat to stave off the frigid wind?
There are the older women straight out of Hollywood type-casting of Slavic women, resplendent in their fur coats and hats, slowly wobbling side to side down the sidewalk as the rest of us strive to negotiate past them. Sven has assured us that fur is cheap here. PETA is apparently not an issue as there are too many targets for splattering with red dye. I’ve seen a couple of vegetarian restaurants, one connected with a Hare Krishna center, but it seems that killing of animals for food and clothing is not all that high on the ethical radar here.
Amongst the younger, stylish set there is a uniform adoption of black. Nice to see some things haven’t changed since I was a young hipster completely out of place in a SF club because I was the only person with any color in his clothing. Knee high spike heeled boots seem rather popular for 20-30 year old women, the dress much like Megan was costumed for the Narrator in Double Blind Sided.
The Russians seem to be in the majority of the merchant class. Don’t know if this is a holdover from the Soviet days when Russian speaking émigrés to the Baltic nations were given priority over native speakers or not. Gypsy musicians serenade us with accordion and brass. Walking along the Daugava River with seasonal lighting hanging from trees like art installations that reflect upon the frozen water I am reminded of the final Jeopardy answer “The Paris of the Baltics”, though I have never been to the City of Light and am only imagining what it must be like.
We haven’t lived in a proper city for a long time. Tacoma was a small city that never really got over not being Seattle. We escaped from L.A. fifteen years ago, and it has no clue what a pedestrian is. We were laughed at when we first arrived and asked “where do people walk?” To go shopping one drives to another city, carefully remembering the aisle number where the car was parked. To go across the street to another mall, the car is retrieved and driven a few hundred yards to yet another (hopefully) remembered parking area. San Pedro, traditional home to longshoremen working the LA Harbor, still reveals a bit of its blue collar heritage and some still celebrate the memory of Joe Hill and the Wobblies on Liberty Hill but walking was not much encouraged there either. I guess that is why San Pedro’s famous sons War sang, “all my friends are low-riders”.
San Francisco was a good walking city and we really enjoyed our Sunday afternoon walks from our Sunset flat through Golden Gate Park, to the Marina, past Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach and China Town. If you got tired you could always hop on a bus to get back. Unlike LA, to go shopping one drove (or took public transport) to a different neighborhood – not a different city. Still, we lived in the more bedroom neighborhoods, not the City Center so our experience was different than being here in the center of Riga.
I wonder, if I was coming from Manhattan, would I notice that the pedestrian traffic doesn’t politely yield to each other or stay to the right in our traditional “driving lanes” but, instead, dart into any available opening in an attempt to reach one’s goal more efficiently. Is the nearly universal fast pace a characteristic of the Baltic or typical of any major city where walking is a major mode of transportation…….or is it just an attempt to walk fast enough to create enough body heat to stave off the frigid wind?
There are the older women straight out of Hollywood type-casting of Slavic women, resplendent in their fur coats and hats, slowly wobbling side to side down the sidewalk as the rest of us strive to negotiate past them. Sven has assured us that fur is cheap here. PETA is apparently not an issue as there are too many targets for splattering with red dye. I’ve seen a couple of vegetarian restaurants, one connected with a Hare Krishna center, but it seems that killing of animals for food and clothing is not all that high on the ethical radar here.
Amongst the younger, stylish set there is a uniform adoption of black. Nice to see some things haven’t changed since I was a young hipster completely out of place in a SF club because I was the only person with any color in his clothing. Knee high spike heeled boots seem rather popular for 20-30 year old women, the dress much like Megan was costumed for the Narrator in Double Blind Sided.