After four weeks of Russian language learning in Riga, the sum of my skills culminated to face one final challenge. I was in a Russian-style Banya, a sauna of sorts, ...
Picture the scene: I had been trawling through the basement of the university languages library, and had finally got my hands on a translation of Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin. At ...
The history of Riga is made of the thousands who have lived here—who have done business in its markets, have lived in its domiciles and have ridden along its trees on tram or ...
Every language has its loan-words, but they pilfer their vocabularies from various victims. We may be familiar with French’s le weekend (weekend), or Germany’s das ...
If you head south-east from St Peter’s church in Riga’s old town, and navigate through the winding backstreets, you will find the Riga film museum. It’s nestled at the end of ...
For the English traveller, the trams of Riga are among the city’s most distinctive features. It is, for us, a novelty to have these train-like carriers gliding speedily ...
The Russian literary tradition presents and interprets many landscapes. From the frozen wastes of Siberia, to the metropoles of Petersburg and Moscow, and even lands where ...
Learning the days of the week in a foreign language is one of the first hurdles you will have to surmount to escape A1. This can be difficult—the names may appear random, are ...
Riga has always been a city shaped by international influences, but the curious historical fact of its English Mayor is still an unlikely anecdote. As a part of the Russian ...
Riga has been a centre of commerce since ancient times. It’s natural harbour on the Daugava river served as a trading post for Finnic tribes in the 2nd century. The city then ...
Russian spelling hasn't always looked the way it does now. Even a brief look at old documents reveal variations in spelling and unfamiliar letters. So where did this change ...
So you’re studying Russian—congratulations. But that could mean a lot of things. Do you study the Russian language at university? Are you studying Russian in the library right ...