Few days after December 13, 1985 I was brought to this house.
Here, on Jauna iela in Jurmala, I have spent first 2 years of my life before my family moved to Riga Center.
Living outside of home country makes me miss Latvia, its people, traditions and spirit.
Being offshore I started to idialize Latvia and its inhabitants, but whenever I come back I understand again and again that nothing is changed, the same brainwashing speeches and stupid provocations under Mēs ♥ Latviju! banners.
When people will start to love its own country as it is, without any fantastic and unrealistic requirements to change.
Straupe is a small town on the road from Riga to Valmiera. It is mostly famous for its Medieval castle nowadays a Narcological clinic, which helps alcoholics and drug addicted get back normal life.
This year I was participating in parliament election by visiting Embassy of Latvia in Minsk.
These elections were necessary because of former parliament dissolution, but honestly I don't see the point of dissolution, because the majority of politicians were chosen again.
There are several stones in Riga marking historical borders of town.
One of them located on Jurmalas Gatve few kilometers away from current city border.
Last weekend Riga officially became 1 year older, and its technical age is 810 years!
A massive celebration was held around the city 3 days in a row. Many subevents, like medieval fights, air show and of course fireworks could be observed in Riga these days.
I would like to continue my tradition and provide here some numbers to describe Riga's "growth".
The city mayor is still Nil Ushakov, but according current tendency, soon there will be no city, but just a settlement.
During the last year Riga population went down from 709,145 to 706,413 residents (-2,732); simple calculation still proves that after a couple of years Riga will have less than 700,000 residents.
Riga region population (including other cities) is 1,098,523. No changes because of new expanded borders.
I really don't understand how, but the picture of Latvia population is getting better. The growth is +27,388 or +1,23% of people (from 2,217,969 to 2,245,357)
Check also stats for 2009 and 2010.
Perfect night photo is traditionally provided by F64.
This creative picture was found on Riga's future development website, and I couldn't resist not to publish it, because this futuristic view of Riga is so intriguing! :)
I hope Latvijas Tilti will do their job fast and without scandals like it did happen with Sothern Bridge.
When I saw a brutal skyscraper in New York with no windows, I told to myself WTF? :)
At that moment I didn't know that in Riga we have something similar. This building technically is only 2 floor high, but it could fit more than 5, and has absolutely no windows.
This building is a huge device and serve as center to control electricity supply around the city.
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