Music in the Streets

Street musicians are an occasional site in many US cities. Here in Riga they’re a daily source of walking-music in and around the parks and streets of Old Riga. This morning, for example, on our way to church we were serenaded with an accordion version of “Hernando’s Hideaway” as we crossed the main plaza near the Freedom Monument. His right foot, with a beer can filled part way with small pebbles attached keeps the beat. Even before the sound has died away, we hear the plaintive strains of “Summertime” played by the trumpeter in the small park behind the amber sellers and their carts of wares—no accompanying foot tapping beat in this case. On our return through the square, in her usual spot in front of a store front across from the amber sellers is the small, but surprisingly spry and energetic, grandmotherly woman, dressed in native garb, dancing, by herself, to folk tunes playing on her small boom box. We thought at first she might be some kind of advertisement for the store, but that’s clearly not the case. She’s just there, dancing regularly whenever it’s not raining hard. One other regular performance is provided by two young girls, one certainly still a teen; perhaps both. They were absent today, but usually play classical music—Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi. The older plays the cello, the younger the violin. In each instance there’s an instrument case out for the occasional coin provided by passersby. The variety and texture of the music here is a wonderful tapestry reflective in many ways of the culture and traditions of the country, as well as the more recent movement for the restoration of independence. “The Singing Revolution” is the name of a book and a recent documentary. It is also the commonly used name for events between 1987 and 1990 that led to the regaining of independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuanian (Wikipedia). Singing folk songs, citizens of the 3 Baltic countries formed a human chain linking their capitols against the tanks of the Russian army. Here in Riga the musical tradition continues, in concert halls and cathedrals and in the music of the street musicians we hear daily.
rej

Latvian National Opera

On October 11 Bob and I attended the Latvian National Opera's new production of Carmen with world renowned Latvian born mezzo soprano Elina Garanca....amazing. I had never been to an opera but am familiar with the music and story line of Carmen, well what a gala production. The production is new this season and the premiere was earlier in October. The Theater was not as large as symphony hall in Boston and we had wonderful seats in the loge area second row. The seats were velveteen covered with wooden carved backs and armless chairs in the loge area. The theater is ornate and gilded absolutely wonderful. From the loge we could look down on the stage, the orchestra pit and the main floor seating area. It had had it's own cafe refreshment area with tables and chairs as wellas a separate coat check area. The production was wonderful. It was presented as taking place in Cuba. The program notes said the Habanera is actually a Cuban/African rhythmic dance that was all the rage in Europe at the time Bizet composed the opera. Bizet refused to visit Spain but the librettist did. When it was first written the musciains of the symphony said the score was impossible and the actors were shocked they were expected to dance as well as sing. To say the least the opera was not well received in Bizet's time. But in Riga it was wonderful. The curtain was a Cuban flag, Act I was a busy street scene in Cuba outside the cigar factory. There were school boys with their red neck kerchiefs as well as a full chorus of street vendors and soldiers. Act II a tavern with neon lights and a picture of Che behind the bar. Escamilio was a boxer, so the toreador was translated "fighter" and all the words and the fans and the adoration fit. The third act was the waterfront in Havana with the painted sunset of Havana with it’s sky line of tall buildings and the wall, the Malecon, mid stage. The Gypsies were bandits/smugglers assembling a make shift float/raft to put into the water to pick up their take. Act 4 was outside a sports arena....Escamilio's boxing trunks were the Cuban flag design. The music was wonderful, the singling amazing, the costumes and staging fantastic. It was great. I spoke with another woman who had seen the opera earlier this month and she thought because of the different staging and taking the opera all the beauty was gone, there were no Gypsies, or toreador or Spanish costumes. We were prepared for the differences. I really enjoyed the "new" interpretation and as everyone has said Elina Garanca is an actress, a dancer and a marvelous singer. We are so fortunate to be able to attend this production of Carmen featuring her since she only gave three performances.

October Roberts teaches in Smiltene and Daugavpils

Bob has taught the Ethics in social work course in Riga for three groups and has taken it "on the road" to branch campuses of Attistiba in Smiltene and in Daugavpils and today he is in Rezekne. Smiltene is a small village of about one hour north east of Riga dating back to 1359. We stayed at a guest house on the grounds of a local technical school and ate in the cafeteria for lunch, scene above and at the guest house for breakfast and dinner. It is in a lovely location of a former manor/estate set on a hill above the village. Attistiba provides Bob with a driver and an interpreter so the logistics of the trip are very smooth. The photo above shows the guys when we stopped at a kafejnica . Daugavpils, as you can tell from the photo of the Russian Orthodox Church, is influenced by its proximity to Belarus. We stayed in a lovely hotel, one year old, with internet connections and a fine restaurant. The menu showed the Russian influence with beet soup and stuffed cabbage. Even the bottled water came from Georgia, a former soviet republic. Daugavpils is the second largest city in Latvia. We had hoped to visit a former fortress built to repel Napoleon's armies on their way to Moscow but the time and weather didn't cooperate. However it is visible on google earth and we could see the vast size and evidence of the earthen works. The drive along the Daugava River on the return to Riga was scenic with the sun setting over the river and the evidence of fall in the color in the leaves.

Street Scene in Riga

Parallel Parking—Riga Style
Parking space in Riga is as tight as almost any place in the world. Think Boston on a Red Sox or Celtics game day or UNH almost any Monday through Thursday class day. Riga is a city of almost one million people, just under half the population of the country. The Old Town, like some parts of Boston, consists of small, narrow streets with no on-street parking. Unlike Boston, there are no public parking garages that we’ve seen anywhere in the city. Until independence was reestablished here 15 years ago, there were significantly fewer personal automobiles in the country. Since independence auto sales in Latvia, including many high end vehicles, have boomed. Parallel parking is often a challenge even for those of us with lots of driving experience. Have you ever tried to sideslip into a parallel space that was just a bit too short for the vehicle? Oh, add to the picture an absence of parking meters and no clearly demarcated, white-lined spaces on these streets. Rigans do pay for parking—there are ticket boxes every half-block or so, but nothing to designate one space from the next. So, when faced with this situation, here’s the Riga approach. Pull up next to the car either in front of or just behind the space you’ve decided to occupy. Angle the car headfirst into the space if you’re approaching from behind, or back into the space from the front so that in either case one wheel of your vehicle goes 3-5 feet up onto the sidewalk. If there’s room, proceed in drive and reverse to move the vehicle into a parallel position. If the space is small, leave the car angled with one corner a few feet onto the sidewalk. The accompanying picture illustrates the technique. They do use wheel “boots” for illegally parked cars, a gaudy hot pink color, but I’ve yet to see one on an angled-in “parallel-parked” car.
rej

Jurmala....The Baltic Shore

Tuesday Bob and I took the train from the Central Station in Riga to Majori to walk along the beach on the Baltic Sea. It was a warm, sunny day and we were able to relax. We passed people biking, walking, pushing baby carriages, a school group playing soccer and others sitting with faces lifted to the sun. After a lunch we took the train back to Riga and bought saldejums, ice cream, in the park.

It was a wonderful day.

Centraltirgus....Central Market

To get a sense of the vastness of the Central Market try this link to google maps and you can see the five large pavilions each one dealing with a different product: meat, fish, produce, cheese and clothing. These pavilions in Riga were built in the 1930's and each is 12m high and covers 75,000 square meters following the design for Zeppelin hangers. Inside are the various counter areas not unlike the deli in our supermarkets. Outside the pavilions are permanent rows of stalls and open areas with benches to display products. The flower rows are extensive and the berries and mushrooms are plentiful. We were told that some of the first laborers to emigrate to Ireland from Latvia were the mushroom pickers. The indoor stands are permanent and some of the people behind the outdoor benches have only a few items. Some of the benches were empty, so we wondered if on Monday some people don't come to sell products. One elderly man had only two containers of raspberries, and several locations had a with a wide variety of mushrooms including chanterelles and morels. Some of the flower sellers had permanent stalls and other flower sellers like the two women in the photo look like they brought in flowers from their home gardens. The fish came in all combinations, salted, seasoned, frozen but mostly fresh; mostly salmon but also eels, herring, trout, cod and caviar. In the meat building everything was available from liver to chops to pig's heads. We bought a bouquet of flowers, dill and a cauliflower. I plan to return with my large cloth shopping bag for the produce looks fresh and the prices are good. It seemed many Riga citizens were doing their shopping here at the Centraltirgus.



http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=56.943488,24.115119&spn=0.002335,0.006394&t=h&z=17&om=1

Apavu Labosana

Shoe repairs. Yes, with all the walking around Riga and up the three double sets of stairs to our apartment at least once a day, I'm already wearing out shoes. So, I have the need for a shoe repair person. I found apavu labosana in the yellow pages in the apartment phone book, found that there was one on terbatas iela with the building number. Terbatas is one block over from us, we've walked terbatas when we go in to vecriga, so off I went. After walking past the numbered spot I saw no shoe repair place but I did see an upscale shop selling shoes. I went in an asked if anyone spoke English, the young girl said she did so I asked about a shoe repair shop. She said I'll show you, and pointed me into the courtyard behind her shop and there was number 37. It was a small 10 by 10 shop with many shoes on shelves and a customer talking with the repair person. Since I had my questions written down, vai jus varat salabot sis kurpes? I was able to communicate my question and ask if he could fix the shoe. Actually, showing him the shoe probably was how I communicated. He pulled out the insole, looked at how it was put together and shook his head and showed me some twine. My impression was he couldn't fix it to make it the way it was constructed. The shoe was a clog and fastened with staples, I think he is going to sew it. I asked Cik maksas? How much, he wrote down 2Ls and then I asked...by showing him the written out sentence Kad bus kurpes gatavas? When will the shoe be ready. He wrote the time and the day and I confirmed that yes it would be piektdiena, Friday, and he was sure to show me his darba laiks time of working, on the door at 17.00 which is 5 o'clock. I'll find out Friday if I really was able to communicate when I go with my receipt to pick up my shoe tomorrow.
I need to learn some Latvian...as Bob always said, adult learning is on an as needed basis, so I tried to study some more pages of Latvian last night and this morning....I'm not real sure when something requires the dative or the genetive and I don't know those endings yet. However I do know that the noun and pronoun endings change because of the use in the sentence. At this point I am trying to learn vocabulary words.
When I asked for water, udens, at the Attistiba cafeteria with Bob, I think she might have heard, or I might have said, uguns which is fire. I need to find out how to add Latvian fonts on the computer so I can get the lines over the letters like the u in udens has one and the u in uguns does not....so my posts are more complete and correct.

Last night Bob and I went to an organ concert in Rigas Domas and heard the huge organ. It was a program of Bach, Bizet and Glaas. The Bizet was from L'Arlesienne and was wonderful. We might go back for more since this is part of a two week Music in Cathedral series.