although much as to what I was expecting from just seeing videos and pictures of the town, the actual town spirit was an interesting mix of late 90-s early 2000-s of the post-Soviet area and modern Eastern Europe. The beach is Sochi-long, but unlike Sochi is a sand beach (hot sand!) and is followed by a stripe of pine forest along the shore. I do not think I have ever swum in a sea while enjoying strong pine smell floating above water. By the number of ice-cream booths and stands Jurmala can compete with Venice and its gelato stores at this time of year. People are nice. The hospitality of our hosts is beyond description.
A long conversation with people of our generation about jobs and unemployment, government and politics, local view or EU vs Russia and high expectations of the Land of Great Opportunities is very informative and extremely thought provoking. A long conversation with people of slightly older generation about the economics, politics, doing business in EU and globally is, well, very informative too!
Riga is a little cute gingerbread town to be crissed-crossed for a day, especially with a great guide such as one we had. Looking back it is it hard to believe how much we managed to stuff into this one day: from the main city attractions to driving through the Moscow Vorstadt (all sprinkled generously with historic information, gossip, anecdotes and jokes), to the Riga Central Market (beer with cannabis, anyone?), to real Uzbek food (never thought chebureki could be that delicious. How do they manage to pour broth inside??). A separate highlight of the trip to the market was that the gift to us - a "dream of an immigrant" bag filled with "taste of nostalgia" fish products worth of 8kg - safely made it to Slovenia.
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