Baltic Visitor

Stag parties visiting the Baltics have been getting a bad press recently, so it was interesting to read a recent article in the Times which suggested that…well…it isn’t all that bad really. The writer dived headfirst into the stag experience with beer, dubious food and ‘medieval lesbian strippers’ (weren’t they minor characters in the Canterbury […]

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I hope that any of my readers living in (or visiting) the Baltics enjoyed last night, and want to wish them a happy Jāņi (Latvia), Jaanipäev (Estonia) or Joninės (Lithuania). If anyone managed to find one of those mythical flowering ferns, please let me know!
I came across a traditional Latvian Jāņi song yesterday in the […]

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[ 22 June, 2007; 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. ] The 22nd June sees an array of events in Riga’s Dome Square. The Green Market (Zāļu tirgus) runs from 9am-5pm, selling traditional Jāņi foods. You can also buy oak leaves and flowers for garlands, which can be threaded while you wait, if you want to go for the traditional Midsummer look. There are musical events […]

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With only a few days to go before Midsummer, there is an excellent article on the annual festivities on Latvians Online – one of the best English-language Latvian websites. The piece by writer and musician Amanda Jātniece describes the run-up to Jāņi (Midsummer) in a manner recalling the days before Christmas:
Jāņi is on the air […]

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[ 15 August, 2007; ] The basilica in Aglona is the most important place of Christian pilgrimage in Latvia. The original wooden building – founded by the Dominican Order in 1699 – burnt down in 1766, leading to the construction of the current late Baroque structure. It became a basilica in 1980, on its 200th anniversary. In 1993 Pope John […]

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The Baltic Times reports on the court hearing which dealt with the British citizen who was arrested for urinating close to the Freedom Monument while his friends took photographs. He was not present in court, having been allowed to leave the country, and was fined €64 for a charge of ‘petty hooliganism’. Unsuprisingly, he was […]

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A new tram service will launch in Riga on 24th June, transporting tourists in an Art Nouveau inspired ‘retro sightseeing streetcar’ between the Central Market and Anatomical Theatre (Kronvalda Boulevard 9). According to an article in Standby News, the tram journey will take 10 minutes if there is little traffic and will cost 3Ls (about […]

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The Baltic Times has posted an entertaining piece by Joel Alas, who went out in Tallinn on June 5th – the Tuesday night that the new smoking ban was introduced. The journalist finds many of the city’s bars empty, with everyone outside on the pavement instead. He finds himself less than impressed by the atmosphere […]

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My recent posts about Latvia have tended to highlight the negative – arrested tourists and nightclub scams (although the latter story was about the police cracking down successfully) – so I thought it was about time that I wrote something more wholeheartedly positive. After all, Latvia is a great country to visit. I am particularly […]

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Last year Riga’s nightclubs – or more specifically its rapidly proliferating strip clubs – became notorious for scamming tourists out of large sums of money. Unwitting punters, often worse for wear by the end of the evening, would be presented with an outlandishly huge bill for drinks and ’services’ such as a brief chat with […]

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