Riga

Freedom Monument, Riga. Robinson, 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpTqDHfniNO

Riga a city of mystery, nothing in Riga is as it seems. The freedom monument is guarded by men carrying rifles. The former KGB building presents as an ordinary house on an ordinary street. The tiled Victorian flooring gives no hint of what is going to be a journey into the darker side of the city’s history whilst it was under communist rule. Step to the end of the ornate hallway and you are confronted by a metal door and it's like stepping into a parallel universe, high ceilings and moulded architrave are replaced with stark concrete floors and row after row of tiny jail cells. A narrative of torture and inhumane treatment awaits all for simply reading the wrong kind of books. Step back into the sunshine and such an intense thought-provoking tour requires a decent brew and some good grub. I spy an Irish bar, safe bet you would think. Think again, the meal of choice steak pie contained no pastry, but it had lettuce, a whole Lollo Rosso on top. The tea, however, looked promising but went to pour in the milk contained in the small white porcelain jug and it didn’t pour it glugged, it wasn’t milk, it was cream. Thank you Riga, for making me look beyond the exterior, believe nothing question everything!

A view of the cells in the former KGB building. Robinson, 2018.
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photo of Freedom Monument Riga and photo of cells in the KGTB building both by Denise Robinson, 2018 are licensed under Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/