APOLOGIES for a post that takes as its subject matter the sloppiest, laziest, most tedious and most British subject of all - the weather. From ‘PHEW WHAT A SCORCHER!’ to ‘BRRRR!’ the weather is always there and always available to fill a few column inches.
Still, at least it will be marginally more interesting than reading a put-up job about some ginger-haired, half-German, half-Greek halfwit becoming the greatest hero since Achilles and Hector went toe-to-toe at the gates of Troy.
Spring has arrived, as evidenced by the appearance of snowdrops, daffodils and the lads in the back yard firing up their barbecue, though admittedly they were also doing that in mid December. But with longer days, more light entering one’s retinas and a chance to expose parts of one’s body (ahem) to the sun in the hope of replacing winter’s deathly pallor with spring’s rude health, things are definitely looking up.
Feeling the sap rising (possibly due to a rollmop that had seen better days at breakfast) I went for a walk around my Pardaugava manor. The municipal workers have reappeared in Arkadijas park, setting to work in true Latvian style. This generally involves 20 minutes of intense, frenzied activity followed by a 10 minute fag break. Repeat until clocking-off time. But it works, and the parks are being cleared of leaves and litter with impressive speed.
Over on Maras Dikis, a strange craft was being lowered onto the waters. Looking like a Heath Robinson’s houseboat, it’s either going to clean the bottom of the lake or insert some pilings as part of the lake renovation project. A crowd of small boys and grandads had assembled to watch a German crane drop the boat onto the water and it was noticeable that they were clambering all around the crane without a killjoy health and safety inspector to chase them away, insist on hard hats or stop anyone sparking up next to the fuel tanks.
Next I passed the melting remnants of the Uzvaras Park ski course. The mild winter meant that there were barely 2 weeks’ worth of ski-able days during the whole season, but I enjoyed virtually all of them. In the stratospherically unlikely event that this blog is read by the old geezers who did their best to create enough snow to fall over on, I’d just like to say thank you. They looked at me rather strangely the first few times I showed up, but when one of them offered me a sausage he’d cooked on the fire in the ski shack, I knew I had finally been accepted.
A little further on, I discovered proof that despite statistics to the contrary, Riga’s construction boom is far from over - if you’re a mole. Our subterranean furry friends have clearly been working even harder than the park maintenance crews judging from the evidence of hundreds of molehills stretching in all directions. With most of the decent Latvian builders now abroad, maybe the government could usefully employ moles on future infrastructure projects? They even seemed to have left buckets outside some of their constructions, though my attempts to interview them proved fruitless. They were probably on their 10 minute fag break.
The final stop on my brief constitutional was the colossal and colossally ugly Soviet Victory memorial, freshly adorned with flowers. The assumption is generally that these are left by unreformed communists and ultra-nationalistic Russians who dream that one day Latvia will be ‘liberated’ (as the accompanying banner said) again. Well, some are, but others of those red carnations, their colour intensified by crisp spring light, must be left by the families, friends and surviving comrades of Russian soldiers who died fighting their way into Riga.
They were misguided pawns of a brutal regime, fighting other pawns of another brutal regime. Some of them committed atrocities and some of them were psychopaths. But that’s true of all armies.
Most of them were just ordinary Ivans following orders, keeping their heads down where possible, fighting when it became absolutely unavoidable and wanting to return home as quickly as possible.
The victory monument is ugly and inappropriate. It attempts to depict them as socialist superheros using an uneasy mix of pride, horror and escapism. But at least it does provide some sort of marker for ordinary fighting men - the ones who didn’t feel that killing and dying could usefully be roped into a media PR campaign.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 6:33 pm and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
On the contrary Mike, I find that Lithuanians and Latvians talk constantly about the weather. Those balcony thermometers mean that they know exactly how hot or cold it is, and this is a serious discussion topic at work.
Wind is something to be feared, and is accompanised by comments like ¨terrible,¨ ¨hurricane,¨ ¨impossible,¨ and ¨nightmare.¨ {have you noticed how little wind there is in the Baltics. Balts in the UK immmediately comment on how windy it is)
Lastly, you need to talk about the weater so you know whether it is safe to go outside without a coat, or in shirt sleeves. Have you noticed how everyone decides at the same time that winter coats are not required, and people get embarrased and indeed angy if they find themselves wearing a winter coat or boots when others are dressed for spring.
Indeed, I could generalise that while the British talk about the weather merely to make conversation , in the Baltics it is a serious topic of conversation, and woe betide you if you forget that the weather was like two days ago.
MEanwhile, discussion of weather indoors, ie the temperature, draughts, is also serious. Have you noticed that peple in offices spend most of their time disussing whether it is safe to take their jacket/jumper off?
I bow to your greater experience on this one, Richard!
I have certainly noticed widespread terror at the prospect of a draught or ‘caurvejs’. You’d think it was some sort of anthrax-like deadly spore the way even the tiniest whiff of fresh air is excluded from buses and trams while the heaters are cranked right up - hence the sight of hellish commuter buses packed to the gunwhales with condensation dripping down the windows. They may not fall prey to the draught, but one sneeze and everyone on board will have the flu.
[…] I don’t remember having read Baltic Bulletin before, although its RSS feed is in my aggregator so I guess I must have done. Today I stumbled across an article which is a few days old, in which Mike Collier evokes spring in Riga – something which reminds me of my extended trip to Latvia last year. The piece isn’t just about the weather, though, it also has plenty of evocative little touches and even a reflection on the significance of the monument to Soviet victory in Uzvaras Parks. […]