Lucky I check my email.
This morning after breakfast I asked the girl at the desk for train
information. She printed out the
schedule for Sigulda and I was set for a solo adventure to this outlying town,
which has a medieval castle and some other attractions. Back in the room, passing time because it was
too early to leave, I found an email from Slava saying he’ll be over at 12:00. Forgot if he’d said anything about that on
Thursday—“oops” if he had and I hadn’t checked my email this morning.
I was feeling rather woozy from the time difference—didn’t
seem to notice it before now. I was a
little wobbly on my feet going down the stairs to breakfast. Took a nap afterwards, still felt unglued. Hoped it was nothing worse than jet lag. Well, it might be worse than jet lag but so
far, zinc tablets seemed to have stabilized the situation. Wonderful, wonderful zinc!
Slava came alone. The
rest of the family was occupied getting Dima and his family settled in their
new apartment. We drove to Rundale
Palace, about an hour outside Riga. It
is a true Grand Palace, built for the 18th-century Duke of Courland as
a summer vacation getaway. “It’s good ta
be king!” says Mel Brooks. Or duke. But when
you’ve seen one ornate 18th-century palace, you’ve generally seen
them all. Part of the palace had been
restored over the last 20 years, and it is an admirable job.
Room after room of parquet (we had to put shower caps on our shoes),
murky portraits, damask-covered walls, over-carved chairs, putti, ceilings
bedecked with zaftig women—oog. Not a place to take your shoes off and have a
beer with your buddies. Aristos—who needs ‘em, I kept thinking
in room after room after room. Throne
room, ball room, small rooms off the ball room with Chinese porcelain on shelves
that look like rococo wall decorations (reminded me of the room at
Neuschwanstein in Bavaria). The duke’s
and duchess’s separate apartments (bedrooms, dressing rooms and studies); clothing in display cabinets,
some of it reproduced, some genuine. One
of the rooms displayed genealogies on the walls along with the portraits. The current Duke of Courland has a name too
long to be of any use* and according to a quick Internet search, is 403rd
in line for the British monarchy. I
wondered what he does to pass the time.
Slava and I had a good day together, walking and talking
about life and such (as well as I could given my stumbling Russian), just two
old friends shooting the breeze as if there were no years or distance between
us. He’s not happy with the state of
world for the following reasons: Latvia thinks too much of itself, Latvians are
too nationalistic and won’t speak Russian; too many young people emigrate to
Poland, England, US, wherever; farming is neglected… Hmmm, I wondered about that last observation as we passed acres of
smooth green fields, obviously cultivated.
Slava explained that these are only because they’re near Riga and that farms
farther away were abandoned. He
complained that no one wants to buy Latvian produce; they want less expensive
Western European produce (um, that's the free market and besides, don't we all want cheap food,
I thought).
Slava is happy with Putin and Medvedev and the current
Latvian president. He doesn’t like the
multiplicity of political parties in Latvia; he likes our two-party system
(which seems to be about all he likes about the U.S. at the moment). He resents the fact that Latvians are bitter
about Stalin’s deportations; he pointed out that Stalin murdered
Russians as well. Yes, I remarked, but when it's a foreign leader who's murdering your people it's harder to take. His reply: Latvians were prominent in the NKVD and elsewhere in the Soviet hierarchy; they participated in their share of atrocities. Can't deny he has a point. In general, Slava complained, the Latvians are
too wrapped up in the past. Latvia used
to be the leader in Soviet-bloc manufacturing, he lamented; Latvia produced high-quality
rolling stock and radio equipment; now all the factories are abandoned (well, yes, I thought, that was in the Soviet days when they
weren’t competing with the West).
A thick blanket of clouds covered the sky as we drove past wide,
empty vistas punctuated by old farmhouses, shallow rivers and birch copses. Once, the sun slanted through, sending down shafts like those in a Tiepolo painting. We didn’t stop anywhere to
eat. By the time Slava dropped me off at
Valnu iela, the street that marks the eastern edge of the Old City, I almost fell
into the first eatery that looked as if I could get away with wearing jeans. It was a tourist trap but it did what it had
to—served food and beer. But even before
that, I walked into the bookstore I usually pass on my way to class. I was drawn by “Books” in English on the
storefront (also in German and Russian) and they did have a table and a shelf
of English-language books. I just basked
in the pleasure of the smell of a bookstore.
Back in snug hotel room-- oh yes, respiratory system is
flashing alert status…glad I stuffed those Tylenol capsules in the medicine bag
at the last minute. Briefly debated
whether to put clothes back on and run down to supermarket for juice and extra
water, but only briefly. Alert status
means immediate action. Thank Heaven for
capitalism—a supermarket with all modern conveniences, including a big box of
OJ, right across the street! Now to
battle the cold with fresh ammunition.
___________________
*If you insist: Prince
Ernst-Johann Karl Oskar Eitel-Friedrich Peter Burchard Biron of Courland
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