22 Aspazijas Boulevard, Riga
www.hotelriga.lv
Arrived last night in Latvia - my first time ever in the former Soviet Union. The hotels are still in it, though, I think - God, breakfast was terrible. Dining room decor is like those Communist-era hotels in Prague - orange juice tasted pure 1970s, rest of the food was the sort of shite you tend to get in hotel buffets and wouldn't touch - fatty, reformed meat; cheese of no discernable provenance; wonky fish... I will be eating outside tomorrow morning.
Riga as a city is beautiful, I think - the pictures in the guide books look great, but I can't really see too much behind the blinding sideways freezing rain and sleet. It reminds me of a sadder Zagreb, or a less exciting Luxembourg (no, that's not a typo). I spent two hours in the Occupation Museum - Soviets, then Nazis, then Soviets again. It was actually quite moving to see how many times these people were on the verge of freedom, then got overrun again. Maybe in a few years, they'll have an EU section.
I have already grouped the only people I have seen: the terrified, the hookers, the undead, the skinheads/ goths/ neo-fascists, and the downright obnoxious. You go into a shop and not only do they not come licking your feet like in Banana Republic (a sycophantic practice which I hate anyway, and performed by meretricious sales fairies flapping around the Eaton centre, looking for commissions), but they don't even say hello like in France or grunt at you like in Ireland. I arrived at the hotel last night just after 23:00 (and about 20 minutes after the plane landed - the city is the size of a village), checked in with an unexplainably-nervous receptionist, then got in the lift - where some Chinese-looking 50-year-old bloke speaking Russian, perhaps from somewhere in Central Asia but obviously twisted drunk, asked me if I did kung fu, and then I think he suggested he would wrestle me. All I could think of was that fight in Borat. I go to get out on the 5th floor (I seem to get room 529 in every single hotel I ever check into), and he stands in my way ready for a grapple. So I basically walk over him. Ten minutes later, on my way back out, I see the concierge talking to him and getting ready to kick him out - or go for round two. You'd never be sure in this place.
This morning I went for a sauna before breakfast. You get the door from the foyer unlocked by some porter; you go down a stairs, twice; along a dark, narrow passage like something in a submarine, then another stairs, and finally you go into some sort of party room. The sauna is off this. I realise then that they have sauna parties here. I am on my own, and in 1974. The heat's not too high, when people start coming in. Men, women, not a towel in sight, and all proceed to the top deck of the sauna, where they sit directly on the benches with their knees up round their ears. I am internally contorted by the thoughts of the hygiene issues there. I leave before someone from the party room comes into the sauna and offers cheese and pineapples on cocktail sticks.
www.hotelriga.lv
Arrived last night in Latvia - my first time ever in the former Soviet Union. The hotels are still in it, though, I think - God, breakfast was terrible. Dining room decor is like those Communist-era hotels in Prague - orange juice tasted pure 1970s, rest of the food was the sort of shite you tend to get in hotel buffets and wouldn't touch - fatty, reformed meat; cheese of no discernable provenance; wonky fish... I will be eating outside tomorrow morning.
Riga as a city is beautiful, I think - the pictures in the guide books look great, but I can't really see too much behind the blinding sideways freezing rain and sleet. It reminds me of a sadder Zagreb, or a less exciting Luxembourg (no, that's not a typo). I spent two hours in the Occupation Museum - Soviets, then Nazis, then Soviets again. It was actually quite moving to see how many times these people were on the verge of freedom, then got overrun again. Maybe in a few years, they'll have an EU section.
I have already grouped the only people I have seen: the terrified, the hookers, the undead, the skinheads/ goths/ neo-fascists, and the downright obnoxious. You go into a shop and not only do they not come licking your feet like in Banana Republic (a sycophantic practice which I hate anyway, and performed by meretricious sales fairies flapping around the Eaton centre, looking for commissions), but they don't even say hello like in France or grunt at you like in Ireland. I arrived at the hotel last night just after 23:00 (and about 20 minutes after the plane landed - the city is the size of a village), checked in with an unexplainably-nervous receptionist, then got in the lift - where some Chinese-looking 50-year-old bloke speaking Russian, perhaps from somewhere in Central Asia but obviously twisted drunk, asked me if I did kung fu, and then I think he suggested he would wrestle me. All I could think of was that fight in Borat. I go to get out on the 5th floor (I seem to get room 529 in every single hotel I ever check into), and he stands in my way ready for a grapple. So I basically walk over him. Ten minutes later, on my way back out, I see the concierge talking to him and getting ready to kick him out - or go for round two. You'd never be sure in this place.
This morning I went for a sauna before breakfast. You get the door from the foyer unlocked by some porter; you go down a stairs, twice; along a dark, narrow passage like something in a submarine, then another stairs, and finally you go into some sort of party room. The sauna is off this. I realise then that they have sauna parties here. I am on my own, and in 1974. The heat's not too high, when people start coming in. Men, women, not a towel in sight, and all proceed to the top deck of the sauna, where they sit directly on the benches with their knees up round their ears. I am internally contorted by the thoughts of the hygiene issues there. I leave before someone from the party room comes into the sauna and offers cheese and pineapples on cocktail sticks.
No comments:
Post a Comment