Riga, Latvia: the best place you’ve never been

A lot has changed since the Cold War ended. If this is news to you, please stop reading immediately. You don’t want to drink water from a fire hose. But, if you are in fact aware that the Berlin Wall fell (and that David Hasselhoff provided the soundtrack, to the joy of Germans and the chagrin of Americans), then keep going. You’re about to find out why you need to get out to Riga, Latvia.

The days of bugged hotel room phones may be in the past, but you can still see the equipment used to defend the Eastern Bloc against the evils of capitalism at the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia – a name that makes clear how welcome the Russian’s were in this corner of the world. However, these devices are notably absent from the , now a primo site in what is sometimes called the Paris of the Baltics.

Cruise along Albert Street to enjoy the city’s architectural high-points, including facades adorned with serpents, birds, flowers and female faces. German, Austrian and Finnish influences converge on this small nation to create a unique blend that is hard to find anywhere else. With cobblestone under foot, you will soak in the history of this city, and this country, through the faces of its buildings.

Stop by the Central Market while you’re in Riga. It occupies five old Zeppelin hangars, with each representing a different food group: meat, fish, dairy, bread and produce. Also, stop by Laima, the country’s top local chocolate-maker, and make sure you leave room in your bags to bring some home.

When the Iron Curtain was pulled back, we celebrated, and we moved on. Many of the countries once obstructed from view were merely forgotten. Remember them, and add them to our itinerary. As time passes, relics of the communist era will be supplanted by the latest iteration of modernity. The clock is ticking.

Oh, and don’t speak Russian!

Travel read: Around the Bloc

I stumbled upon Stephanie Elizondo Griest’s writing on a stopover in New York City. She was reading from her third and most recent travel-related book, Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines, at Book Culture near Columbia University. I was immediately struck by her engaging use of language and her savvy presence. It’s a pleasant sight to behold a young, female traveler and writer who is curious about the world and daring in her attempts to understand it.

Her reading finished, I bought her debut book, Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana, and when I asked her to sign my book I told her I too was an aspiring travel writer, working on a memoir of my own. “Can’t wait to read about your travels someday,” she wrote in curly script on the title page. I have since been in correspondence with Griest, who has agreed to have me interview her in early January. Until then, I plan to review her three books for Gadling. Here is the first review, of her debut book on her travels around the Communist bloc of Russia, China, and Cuba.
Griest’s three-part memoir documents her experiences in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana during the late 1990’s, and it does so with humor and humility. It took nearly three months for me to make my way through Around the Bloc — not because it was a slow read, but because I wanted to gain an understanding of the three places she writes about in her memoir. Russia, China, and Cuba have long intrigued me as culturally rich places with politically backward power struggles.

Similar to Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, where the traveler’s experiences are summarized by culturally specific activities, Griest’s journey around the bloc are punctuated by drinking, dining, and dancing:”…while Russians bonded over drink and Chinese over dinner, Cubans connected through dance.” Griest’s youthfulness and occasional naiveté captures just how eye-opening one’s travels abroad can be. It is clear by the end of the memoir just how much her experiences in these countries reshaped her values and shook the foundation upon which her life had been seemingly secure.

The tragic Russian Mafiya, Chinese propaganda, and Cuban Revolution stories swirling in Griest’s memoir make her self-discovery that much more palpable. Griest navigates the socialist and political struggle of being in the bloc, and walks away not at all unscathed. Rather, she sets her original assumptions straight again, allowing herself to understand her place in the world that much better.

Of the three parts presented in her debut novel, I must say the most enlightening was the first on her experiences in Russia. It seemed that here, in Moscow, Griest experiences the most profound awakening. I sense these early times, fresh from her undergraduate studies in Austin, that Griest transforms from a hippie wannabe to a truth-seeking, life-living journalist and hearty traveler.

If the popular Eat, Pray, Love is any comparison, I feel Griest’s Around the Bloc far surpasses Gilbert in all the categories I hold dearest to a literary travel writer. Griest masters the art of language and humor; she is finely atuned to her youthful innocence (and, at times, ignorance); just as in life, Griest does not tie her three parts together into a perfect red bow. Instead, there is an imperfection that permeates through her memoir that is raw and real — not just real, but realistic. If Gilbert’s travel memoir satisfied you just enough, then Griest’s will take your breath away. It will teach you things you didn’t know before, but more than this, it will make you get off your couch and out into the wide world, experiencing things you once dreamed of but now can see with your own two eyes.

My review of Griest guidebook, 100 Places Every Woman Should Go, is forthcoming in about a week. Should you pick up any of Griest’s three offerings during the holidays and have a question you’d like me to ask her during my interview with her in early January, feel free to shoot me an email (brendayun@gmail.com).

Where did the commies go?

With September came the near fall of another Communitst leader, as Kim Jong Il, dictator over North Korea vanished from the limelight, joining his Cuban counterpart Fidel Castro in the murky depths of unknown, fiercely hidden ailments.

The realist in me knows that both leaders are gravely ill. Kim Jong Il is said to have suffered a stroke early this month and hasn’t since been seen in public — even for state celebrations. In a similar light, Castro, who seems to have largely recovered from last year’s digestive problems, has resigned from his official state role in Cuban politics and now stays largely out of the public eye — no doubt because he is still an aging, fragile man.

But the conspiracy theorist in my has broader, more hopeful aspirations. I think about these two ailing leaders and wonder if perhaps, Communism has taken a toll on them over these last years and if maybe they’ve finally thrown in the towel and headed out to the beach for some good old vaycay.

I see Kim Jong and Fidel sitting on chaise lounges in the Indonesian Archipelago somewhere, bare feet up and drinking out of coconuts while looking out at the setting sun over a crisp, white beach. And Kim Jong looks over, out of his massive blue blockers at Fidel as the Cuban puts down his latest Harry Potter book to take a pull off his strawberry daiquiri. And Kim says, “Hey buddy… we gave it a shot.”

Wherever you two are, know this: I would take two old school Communist evil doers over one rambunctious Latin American president any day of the week. May your countries be open and peaceful and prosperous without you.

Beijing forces vehicle traffic to halve, subways choke

The great thing about running a communist state is that you can dream up and enforce any crazy rule you want — and the people can’t do anything about it.

China, scrambling to clean up its image as the Olympics draw closer, has been making changes to the landscape left and right — beautifying Beijing, planting flowers and cleaning up the streets.

This week, in an effort to clean up the chronically bad air conditions, the government decided to cut down on vehicle pollution by forcing half of the population to take public transportation. Odd and even ending license plates are now supposed to alternate days that they’re able to drive in the city — and violators are faced with a stiff fine.

As a result, half of the population that formerly commuted by automobile and motorcycle is now trying to cram into the city’s public transportation system. The resulting load on the subway system was recently so great that authorities had to shut down several lines to prevent the suffocating crowds — passengers were only allowed get off of the trains for a while. Perhaps the volumes are a bit larger than the Chinese had predicted.

What would happen to you if you were suddenly forced to take public transportation to work or class? Could you walk far enough to reach the bus or train stop and make it to your morning appointments? Would you let your government prevent you from driving every other day of the week?

Photo of the Day (5/26/08)

Since I am still on my Russian kick this week, I couldn’t resist picking this photo from St. Petersburg by Radim.

I just saw this sight in St. Petersburg this weekend. Right outside the Alexander Nevsky Monastery are two major cemeteries. One of them houses graves of prominent Russian artists such as Dostoevsky or Rimsky-Korsakov. The other cemetery, buried in unkept grass and bushes houses graves of “atheists and communist scientists.” Yes, it is hard to believe that right outside a monastery, there is a resting place for the most non-believing of non-believers. Russia is full of strange paradoxes.

Poetic it is. Just like this picture illustrates. The red star of communist’s grave and a cross in the background.

***To have your photo considered for the Gadling Photo of the Day, go over to the Gadling Flickr Pool and post it. Make sure it is not copyrighted, otherwise we can’t post it here.***