Compassion Rising Tour 2025: Riga - Museum of Occupations, urban legend

Lithuania-Latvia border

Riga: old town and Museum of Occupations

Monday morning I had to go to a bicycle mechanic To get the hub-USB charger for my mobile phone repaired. A few days ago, it had suddenly stopped charging in the middle of a bonkers gravel ride. I was keen to have it fixed before entering Estonia, as there are reportedly vast stretches there where there is absolutely no habitation. The bike shop had quickly fixed the defect - and now I know how to do it too.

After so many kilometres of cycling, he also checked the chain tension. It was already too stretched and best replaced, along with the derailleur cassette.

As such a cassette is quite expensive, I asked if he could put one on with a smaller gear. With the current 11-36 I have difficulty getting up +10 percent hills and next year I would like to go cycling in the Balkans. At my bike shop Lucien they say this can't be done without replacing the whole system, including the shifters and such, with an MTB (mountain bike) system. A rather expensive procedure. When I went to pick up the bike two days later, it had an 11-42 on it and the bike bulged and shifted perfectly! The first ride after Riga I was able to go up very steep train bridges without any problems where I otherwise had to push the bike. Thanks bike shop Riga, this saves me a lot.

In the afternoon, I walked through the old town to the ‘Museum of Occupations’. First I passed City Hall Square with its famous Gothic Zwarthoofden House. This was the home of the Brotherhood of the Black-Headed, a guild for unmarried German merchants in Riga. The original building dated from the 14th century. During a German bombing raid in 1941, it was largely destroyed. The Soviets completely demolished the ruins in 1948. Between 1993-99, the building was rebuilt to its former full glory, this on the occasion of Riga's 800th anniversary. The richly decorated mannerist facade is one of the city's biggest attractions after that reconstruction.

Blacktop house in Riga

Museum of Occupations

Next to City Hall Square is the ‘Museum of Occupations’, which documents the three periods of totalitarian occupation: the first Soviet occupation from 1940-41, Nazi Germany from 1941 to 1944 and once again the Soviets from 1944 to 1991. The amount of information was overwhelming, I only got to half of it on my available two hours. Deportations to Siberia - of entire families at once - by the Soviets of all those who did not fit the profile of ‘proletarian’ and were considered enemies of communism. The lives of those deportees in the gulachs. The Jewish persecution and extermination under the Nazis, the underground resistance to the Russians, which was initially helped by farmers in terms of food supplies and shelters, but that support disappeared as farms merged into kolkhozes. Not stories to be cheerful about. And history is now repeating itself elsewhere....

On the western side of the museum is ‘Riflemen's Square’. This is a controversial monument, erected in 1971 by the Soviets to commemorate Latvian riflemen who fought on the side of the Russian Empire in World War I. During the Russian revolution, some joined the Bolsheviks, contributing to the creation of the Soviet Union. Latvians' feelings about this statue are divided: some hail the riflemen as heroes who defended their country, others see the monument as a witness to the Soviet occupation.

This square also features a large wall in Corten steel which belongs to the Museum of Occupations. The front of the wall consists of a handsome geometric pattern, on the back are reproductions of signatures and texts from victims of the occupations.

Signature wall Museum of Occupations

Kristaps the Great, legendary founder of Riga

To recover from that heavy chunk of twentieth-century history, I strolled some more through the sunny streets of the old town and, towards sunset, strolled for a while next to the Daugava river to enjoy the play of colours of ‘orange hour’. There I passed a reproduction of the wooden sculpture of Kristaps the Great, the legendary figure behind the founding of Riga.

According to the story, Kristaps (or “Great Christopher”) was a giant who lived on the banks of the Daugava. He earned his money by carrying people on his broad shoulders across the river. One stormy night, Kristaps heard a child crying and saw a little boy asking to be carried. Despite the dangerous weather and the fact that the child seemed to grow heavier with every step, Kristaps carried him safely across the street.

The next morning, Kristaps discovered a pile of gold where the child had slept, a sign that the boy was a supernatural being (some say an angel or Christ child). Kristaps used the gold to finance the foundation of the city, and thus Riga was born.

Kristaps the Great

September 2: Central market, Spikeri stack houses and walk old town

The Riga Central Market opened in 1930. It is located in former zeppelin hangars left behind by the German armed forces after World War I, and was considered the largest and most modern market in Europe at the time. In 1997, the market, along with the centre of Riga, was included on the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

It was not crowded when I was there, but the range of fresh fruit, fish, meat and, to a more limited extent, clothing and underwear was overwhelming. I wonder how much of the fresh produce here must be thrown away daily....

Behind the Central Market is the Spikeri district. It consists of uniform former bunkhouses that repurposed with EU support since 2012 to be used for residential, cultural and leisure purposes. I didn't see much life there yet. There was one theatre and a few small artisan shops that were closed. But I suspect the neighbourhood will look much hipper and more vibrant in the foreseeable future. Those original stacked houses have a lot of potential.

Riga Central Market

On the way to the art museum Riga Bourse I passed the St John's Church with its 26-metre-high, intricate Gothic rib vaults, the Lutheran St Peter's church - Twenty per cent of Latvians are Protestant - and the Dome Cathedral.

Riga Bourse museum

In addition to art from different corners of the world and eras, including some showcases with Tibetan art and religious artefacts, this former stock exchange building also houses some paintings made in Tibet before the Chinese occupation.

Fortunately, the Tibetan collection here was not indicated by the country name ‘Xizang’, the Chinese term for Tibet that the government is trying to impose everywhere, aiming not only to wipe Tibetan culture off the map, but also the designation ‘Tibet’.

China is also trying to introduce the Xizang designation to other countries and foreign cultural institutions. This already succeeded, for example, at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris and British Museum in London, which provoked vehement protests from local Tibetan communities in exile. Both museums have since thankfully reversed this policy.

For more information or the Tibet/Xizang controversy, see https://tibetnetwork.org/un-expert-calls-out-erasure-of…/

Tibetan landscape Nicolas Roerich

Nicolas Roerich painted in Tibet before Chinese occupation

So to my surprise, this museum also houses a collection of paintings by one Nicolas Roerich (1874-1947), a Russian writer/painter/traveller who spent a long time in the Himalayas in the 1930s in search of spirituality and the deeper meaning of life. In 1937, he donated some of those works to the Latvian Roerich Society. This was founded in 1930 and grew into an important cultural centre in Riga. Latvia was the land of Roerich's forefathers. With the first Soviet occupation in 1940, the society was dissolved and its art collection was kept in the State Museum of Latvian and Russian Art.

Roerich made some of the works shown in pre-Chinese occupation Tibet. For that reason, I photographed them all. They were behind glass, unfortunately with sometimes unavoidable reflections.

National Art Museum

I devoted my last day in Riga to visiting the National Art Museum, where in the basement the temporary exhibition ‘Light from Italy: from Fattori to Morandi’ ran.

Some rooms on the second floor showed work by the Latvian artist Džemma Skulme (1925-2019), from during the Soviet occupation and after.

The exhibition I found most fascinating was ‘Dismantling the Wall - Latvian Art 1985-91. Work from during the last years of the Soviet occupation, in which the yearning and call for more freedom manifested itself more and more openly. There is more explanation under some of the pictures.

And then there was the usual art-historical presentation of Latvian painters in the 19th and 20th centuries. My head had gradually become oversaturated with art impressions after four days in the city. I took only a few photos in this museum.

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