G’day (again), Riga!

My third visit in less than a year. Riga, I concede; this has become something of a romance. How did you do it? Was it those long summer nights, riding bolt scooters from one bar to another with fellow students, all of us considering our новости (‘news’, a favourite homework assignment at L&D, which requires one to recite a current affair or interesting fact in grammatically tolerable Russian), the sun never quite setting, but only fading, like the egress of an impression, or was it that winter melancholy which made more sweet Tolstoy’s diaries, considered by a soviet heater, or the Cathedral, on Christmas Eve? 

I write to you on the bus to Jekabpils, a small ‘city’ (town) two hours from Riga. I’ve been told that the monastery there has a miraculous icon of the Mother of God. It was discovered by Yakov Gudynsky, a soldier fighting for the Swedes, during the Russian-Swedish war (1654-1667). Yakov saw a piece of wood floating down the Western Dvina and pierced it with his spear. The spear came away weeping blood, and upon the wood, which Yakov placed on the ground near him, the face of the Mother of God with her Child appeared. Yakov converted to Orthodoxy and spent the rest of his life in the monastery, taking the now famous icon with him. 

On the other side of the window Spindletree, Juniper, Birch, Pine; the forests of this country are spectacular in spring, as if the trees have just entered conversation with one another. Inside the bus there are phone calls from curious relatives, and the two teenagers who, having used a stranger’s change to board, thereafter discovered the coffee machine and proceeded to drink four cups of coffee in less than forty-five minutes. We pass over the Daugava, by old and new industry, through small towns asleep before summer. Liden and Denz brings you to Riga, but during your time studying or interning you will see much more than the classroom.

I am very appreciative to be back so soon in this wonderful country to study and to explore both city and countryside. My Russian improved immensely over the winter with Liden and Denz, and almost as soon as I was back in Australia I made plans to return. I will be writing for this blog well into July. Together we will watch the change of season, such festivities as Ligo and the Summer Solstice, the coming of one student group and the going of another. Together we will visit small towns, read and listen to Russian masterworks, talk architecture (soviet, art nouveau, and other), and sit by the Daugava, and walk down trails in the Dzintari Forest Park. I hope to lay a hand on the pulse of this place and time of year and to record a thing or two about life in Latvia for all you who are curious, or reminiscent.

Увидимся скорo! 

Laef, currently studying Russian at Liden & Denz Riga