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

Ščecina or Szczecin is the name of shopping mall and restaratunt built in Soviet times in Kengarags.

Labels: cities, kengarags, polish, restaurants, shopping, soviet

Velnezers (Devil's Lake) is a small lake between apartment blocks in Jugla.
Lake is infamous for being very dangerous for swimming due its double (or even tripple) bottom.

Labels: animals, birds, buildings, jugla, lakes, nature

It is not a photo, but technology constantly goes forward, so I have started to experiment with videos :)
Please check my first timelapse video taken last rainy monday on the way to Vilnius from Riga.

Labels: cars, kekava, latvia, lithuania, morning, movies, music, rain, riga, roads, videos, vilnius, weather

Cape Kolka is extreme geographical point of Latvia and one of Lativan nature monumenets.
It marks the border between Baltic Sea and Riga Gulf, unfortunately every year Cape Kolka is getting smaller and smaller because of being eaten by the Baltic Sea.

Labels: beaches, kurzeme, nature, sea, sights, trees

Although this huge-size 32-meter diameter antenna is not located in Riga, it is one of remarkable sights in Latvia.
It was built in 1971 in the Westernmost point of USSR to intercept radio waves over Atlantic.
Another, smaller locator (16-meter in diameter) is located several hundreds meters away.

Labels: military, sights, soviet, ventspils

Standing in car queue to Jurmala on weekend day may take up to hour.
And that's all is because the entrance to this city is not for free.

Labels: cars, jurmala, queue, roads, traffic

A building on the crossroads of Kokneses prospekts and Visbijas Prospekts was built in 1934.
I've been growing up in this area and I remember that on the first floor, here was a shop with a lot of interesting stuff, today, after 20 years I discovered that it was a book store ;)

Labels: buildings, mezaparks, shopping, streets, summer, tramways