A set of stairs from a computer shop leads up to a room adorned with videogames consoles everywhere, here you can play all sorts of old retro games. A couple of old arcarde games such as Operation Wolf, as a well as old consoles like SNES / PlayStation etc. A few old games I had forgotten about such as Zool & Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe. Some other games I didn't recognise such as "Alex Kidd in Miracle World". Still didn't understand Sentinel. Also played some little racing game called Grand Theft Auto!
While big shopping malls have the usual automatic sliding doors, most museum and shops, in contrast to Edinburgh, have closed doors, if you want in, just try the handle and push you're way in!
Visiting the Powder Room which is now a War Museum, the permanent exhibition on WWI was good as it had English captions! 140,000 Latvians got drafted into the Army. Fought on the Eastern front as part of the Russian Army, then later on the Western front as part of British / French armies. After the armistice they were then engulfed in the Russian civil war. Some battalions ended up returning from Vladivostok (near North Korea) a 4 month boat journey. Overall Latvia lost 35% of its prewar population.
Then after WWII, there was this caption:
Strange Victory
Re-occupation of Latvia and the end of the Second World War. 1945
On
the morning of 8 May 1945, crowds of people overwhelmed by euphoria and
joy are gathering in London's Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus,
where thousands of cheery strangers celebrate and dance together. A
colorful blizzard of confetti is falling on people's heads in New York's
Time Square. The warmth of the spring sun flows into the open Parisian
windows – Allied flags are hanging all over the city. Nazi
Germany is defeated, and the world is celebrating victory. Meanwhile,
the battles in Kurzeme, where Latvian soldiers were tragically forced to
fight against each other on both sides of the front, were calming down.
On the afternoon of May 8, Major General Otto Rauser of the German Army
Group Kurland (Kurzeme) signs the capitulation, and after a four-year
break, Soviet occupation rule returns to all Latvian territory.
Some
are happy about the end of the war and are trying to adapt to the new
circumstances of occupation. Others are hiding in the forests, hoping
for the arrival of the British and the liberation of Latvia. However,
freedom will not come for another 45 years, and very soon on 25 March
1949 - a new wave of deportations will wash away another 42,125 Latvian
souls to Siberia. It is a cold and muddy May of 1945 – the war is over,
captivity continues
On Saturday I decided to head out of the centre to the Kalciema Quarter Market, walking over the main bridge, the left hand side is coned off, and realised it is because the concrete is flaking away, not what you want to see half way across. Lots of wooden styled houses out the centre, difference style of architecture.
Didn't take long to walk around the small market, got a pumpkin & cheese pie. Didn't see anywhere selling drinks except for coffee shop. Nipped across the road to the big Lidl to grab a bottle of juice. Seems like Lidl on a Saturday afternoon is busy no matter where you are in the world! Finish off with a couple of biscuits one a gingerbread, the other some sort of cookie with cream.
Wandering around from the market back towards the centre, passing through an old neighbourhood called Agenskalns, complete with a MAGA poster (Make Agenskalns Great Again)
I happened past the modern building of the National Library. To get into the main library, looked like you would have to register, however they did have a couple of exhibits open to the general public. I decided to take a different bridge on the way back, this one was more solid. When crossing the road everybody waits on the green man, very little just going across as there is no traffic.
Back into town and had a go at some archery that was set up next to St Peters church. I did hit the centre yellow bit, but the photographic proof didn't come out very well😒
On Sunday, a quick fuel up on French pastry at Cadets, then next stop Parnu
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