Luke the Intern returns home—a look back on Riga

30 Aug 2023

398
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, ...
07 Aug 2023

453
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 ...
31 Jul 2023

481
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 ...
25 Jul 2023

697
  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 ...
21 Jul 2023

397
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 ...
20 Jul 2023

570
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 ...
17 Jul 2023

505
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 ...
14 Jul 2023

2094
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 ...
12 Jul 2023

559
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 ...
11 Jul 2023

479
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 ...
10 Jul 2023

455
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 ...
07 Jul 2023

2148
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 ...