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.

Labels: birthdays, houses, jurmala, snow, winter, wooden

Last shot of the view, that I saw for almost one year..

Labels: autumn, bridges, buildings, cars, lights, night, traffic, zemitani

Perspective view under Slavu tilts, which was recently rebuilt and now connects Kengarags with Plavnieki at another level ;)

Labels: bridges, kengarags, roads

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.

Labels: autumn, castles, country, drugs, lakes, medicine, medieval, towns, vidzeme

Artelis is a new (1 week old) night and performance club on Blaumana between Caka iela and Barona iela.

Labels: art, club, music, nightlife, people, theaters

This year I was participating in parliament election by visiting Embassy of Latvia in Minsk.

Labels: belarus, embassies, outside latvia, politics

Klasika is the name of the premium school located in Teika. It was opened in 1993 as one of first private schools in Riga.

Labels: benches, buildings, education, flags, schools, teika

Star Lounge Bar is located on top floor of Albert Hotel, on Dzirnavu iela.
It is famous for a calm atmosphere and the great view towards old town.

Labels: bars, center, hotels, modernism, windows

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.

Labels: buildings, devices, history, imanta, roads, streets, trees

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)

Labels: birthdays, boats, bridges, daugava, events, fire, holidays, lights, night, riga

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.

Labels: bridges, daugava, future, panoramas, projects, rivers, roads, tunnels, winter

Beaches of Gulf of Riga may differ quite much.

Labels: beaches, country, nature, sea

Ķemeri is name of the railway station and one of the Jurmala neighborhoods since 1959.

Labels: buildings, jurmala, stations, trains, writings

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.

Labels: buildings, cars, center, devices, maskachka