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| City Guide - Riga - City Overview | ||
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City Overview Between the two world wars Riga was revered across Europe as the 'Paris of the North'. Today, this bustling city, the biggest of the three Baltic Republic capitals with 850,000 inhabitants, is once again on the rise, after shaking off the shackles of Soviet rule. Riga simmers with many layers - it is at turns cosmopolitan and refined, then bold and brash. The Latvian capital is a difficult city to pin down, but one that more and more travellers today are discovering before the tourist hordes inevitably arrive. After a cycle, dating back throughout its turbulent history, of being routinely sacked, occupied, reoccupied and then sacked again, by everyone from the Teutonic Knights to the Nazis and Stalin, Riga has plenty to celebrate as it marks its 800th year in 2001. In 1991, the Latvian capital finally broke free from Russia and today it often feels like many of the local citizens are still celebrating, especially in the buzzing bars and nightclubs that create the liveliest nightlife in the region. It is this ability to survive and reinvent, emphasising the positive over the negative, that is helping Riga to grow into the most vital city in the Baltic Republics today. Riga is already the de facto Baltic business capital, leaving Estonia's Tallinn and Lithuania's Vilnius in its wake. New shops, bars and businesses are springing up as Riga ditches any lingering images of Cold War Soviet cities and sets its sights firmly westwards; Karl Marx is out and mobile phones are in. While Tallinn and Vilnius are routinely compared to Prague, Riga's Old Town has a far more Germanic, though no less attractive, feel. Wedged between the wide sweep of the Daugava River and the city canal, the compact Old Town is an orgy of architectural styles - everything from Gothic and Baroque through to classical and the famed Art Nouveau. This eclecticism stems from the numerous occupiers and incomers who have all left their indelible mark on the city. It is with an ironic sense of pride that the locals today boast that the city, whose architecture escaped World War II relatively intact, now offers the finest example of Germanic Art Nouveau in Europe. With the Baltic Sea just over 12km (seven miles) down river, many people imagine that Riga has an unforgiving climate, but although winter can be long, dark and bitter, spring and summer days are often blessed with balmy daytime temperatures and long hours of daylight. When the sun shines the city's numerous parks fill up, tables spill out of cafés and revellers laze along the city canal in rowing boats - a scene that is more Mediterranean than East European. This cocktail of influences, architectural styles and nations is at the heart of modern Riga. Now that democratic freedoms have returned and the country is rushing towards EU and NATO integration, Riga has firmly placed itself back on the map as a major European city, with that unmistakable air that Graham Greene eulogised as being distinctly 'Parisian'. |
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