Riga: Latvian Art Nouveau

RIGA: art noveau alla lettone

The soberest of the three, the darkest and most unknown, the most confused and the most forgotten, Riga is part of the trio of Baltic wonders, together with Vilnius and Tallinn, up there in that wedge of green and blue earth, recently free from oppression and finally free. While its two little sisters are inextricably medieval, Riga has set aside its past as a Hanseatic city, devoting body and soul to the 20th century, to Art Nouveau, to the Liberty style, to the compulsive excess of decorative elements, from pompous classicism to a thousand... all of it in a universe of a medieval port, with its splendid Protestant churches, between Gothic art and forgotten castles.

Here where the Teutonic knights called the tune, after years of abuse and invasions, here as in the Estonian and Lithuanian squares, the Latvian people came out to make merry back in 1991 to celebrate the second independence after the very brief one between the two wars. Riga is 50% Russian, in the streets, in the language, with poor Latvian now lost in the twists and turns of history, suffocated by Russian, in the cuisine and in the customs. It is the most Russian of the three cities, but also the oddest and most fun, the richest and most European, the most cosmopolitan and avant-garde. Not to be missed, on the route towards Tallinn, this splendid green city, river port, jewel of Art Nouveau, of Liberty and a proud example of the new Latvia.