We visited the fashion historian Alexander Vasilyev's collection exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design. The exhibition is dedicated to fashion from the late 19th and early 20th century. Here one can truly feast one's eyes and gain a certain insight into the social history of that era.
We strolled briskly along the harbour promenade, viewing and photographing the exhibited cows - among them a storm cow, a police cow, a golden cow, a herb cow, a light cow, and others. At the evening concert in Reņķis Garden, the sound and performance were up to the mark - a pleasure to listen to. Almost all the most popular old Dire Straits songs were performed.
Yesterday, 13 June, I attended a fantastic concert at the Riga Congress Hall, where New York Voices leader and Grammy Award winner - the world-famous Peter Eldridge - performed together with Latvian vocal group Framest. A small photo and video glimpse of the concert.
A brief glimpse of a few events at "Museum Night 2012". This year we visited five locations in Riga, also stopping en route at the excellent Georgian wine bar Winiveria in the Quiet Centre (which on this night had transformed into the Noisy Centre) - highly recommended!
Today, on the afternoon of 5 May, several hundred cyclists gathered on the Esplanāde near the Rainis Monument - on vintage and newer bikes, dressed in retro style: tweed outfits. This year the event in Riga was held for the third time. In May 2010, around 150 participants took part; last year - 400 cyclists; and this year it looks as though there were half as many again.
Horna Garden in Majori had gathered a sizeable crowd of spectators and listeners. On the large screen, three feature films were screened throughout the day; then towards evening, beloved melodies of the past century rang out from the repertoires of Édith Piaf, Joe Dassin, and Mireille Mathieu.
Riga has just celebrated its 810th birthday with concerts, markets, a knights' tournament, a retro car parade, a salsa marathon, a regatta, aerobatic displays, and many other engaging and crowd-pleasing events. It seems the highlight of this year's celebrations was not the customary fireworks - also impressive enough - but the casting of a key to Riga from 52,763 keys previously donated to a chest.
When I stumbled upon the promotional article by chance, I was pleasantly surprised that a musician of such world standing would be performing right here in Latvia, and that tickets were available for a mere Ls 3. Of course, they were purchased without delay, and on Saturday evening we headed to Reņķis Garden in Ventspils. The British musician, despite his years, was just as charismatic as ever - but his voice had lost a good deal of the resonance of its younger years.
As planned, today we went to the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Old Riga to visit the Alexander Vasilyev collection exhibition "From Mini to Maxi. 1960s Fashion." There were not too many people, so everything could be calmly viewed, read, studied, and photographed.
Now for the fourth time, the "Strawberry Festival" is being organised in the square by the Spice shopping centre. A certain disappointment came from the fact that there was almost everything except strawberries - dried goods, cheeses, breads, pastries, cherries, raspberries, and other delights. Only three of all the vendors on offer had strawberries. In the end, with a badge and a brochure about how healthy a berry like the strawberry is in one's diet - but without strawberries - we went on our way.