Riga central market against the backdrop of the Rail Baltica construction site

A few months ago I heard that no one would go to the market anymore. The situation is serious enough to pass by: after all, thousands of people literally feed here. And those who provide the trade and nutritional process, and their clientele.

There was Maskavas, now Lastadias

I must say that on Sunday getting closer to the market if you are by car is quite a quest. You must, of course, use established tactics, circle around hidden places and still find the coveted parking slot. Too many people want to go to the market in comfort, and even more so on the day of completely free municipal parking. Of course, you can leave your car in paid parking lots around the area, but the cost here will completely eat up the possible benefit from visiting a small wholesale establishment.

The transformed space from the Daugava side is now called Lastadijas Street – this is how the Maskavas section to the Island Bridge was renamed. In principle, this entire microdistrict has been called Lastadia since the 14th century – according to the German measure of weight Last. Here sailing and rowing ships carrying goods to Old Riga unloaded. But I personally have an association with something ancient. And then the poetess Aspasia comes to mind. Well, everyone can have their own parallels, but if they really wanted Maskavas to survive, then they should have braved the rain in 2020 and gone to early municipal elections.

Now the coalition of changes in the Riga City Council is changing everything as it pleases, and as for the city-forming elements, a convenient turn has been made through the tram tracks to the embankment.

The groundwork for a bicycle bridge in front of the fish pavilion seems somewhat absurd, let this be a reminder of the ambitions of Rail Baltica and that there is no need to put the cart before the horse.

As for the Riga vagabonds, this ubiquitous contingent is already mastering the architectural accents built in the process of urban transformations. On the new wide and solid benches you can recline at ease during the coming summer season. Although nearby there is the legendary metropolitan drying room – a sobering station, where, as I noticed, new guests are constantly being sent. Still, hanging new street signs is much easier than changing, as they say in high calm, the genius of the place.

To whom food court, to whom daily bread

Perhaps nowhere in Riga are ethnographic contrasts more evident than at the Central Market. The foreigner was closely integrated into the pavilions, which were originally intended for German zeppelins and arrived to us in the late 1920s from the Courland village of Vainode, where they were erected by the German occupiers, and the architect Pavils Dreimanis (1895–1953) decided to adapt them for the construction of a bazaar. Our apartment, by coincidence, is also in a large house built by Dreimanis, in the area of ​​Exporta, Sakaru and Auseklja streets. It is also decorated with statues of Richards Maurs, who ended his days in the USA – like Dreimanis in Australia.





Well, now in the former hangar you can gradually listen to how a dark-skinned native from Central Asia selling dried fruits masterfully mastered the state language of the Republic of Lithuania. His fellow countrymen come out in large numbers to buy meat for the whole brigade and build pilaf together.

Where else in Riga can you find the necessary ingredients in such commercial quantities? So that both the lamb and the greens are correct. So, supply and demand is formed – lo and behold, there’s a lush bunch of dill and parsley for a very reasonable 60 cents. And other items seem to be before the rise of inflation – a lot of cheeses are even cheaper than 10 euros per kg, large soft tangerines for 2, strawberries for 2.50.



It would be nice, of course, for everyone to buy it up, but the goods in the aisles, especially imported fruits, are too similar for everyone. The situation changes inside the pavilions, where a variety of aromatic specialties reign. Guests from Western Europe gather there, attracted by stories of gastronomic abundance.

For some reason there are a lot of Italians. Here the group is led by a punchy blonde, clearly one of our former selves. Guests from the Apennines listen enthusiastically and seem ready to try Riga Samogon with aromatic smelt as a snack.



And here the young people speak some complex language, Hungarian, it seems, – they are discussing, looking at the just purchased bottle with the Moskovskaya label. Yes, this one hasn’t been renamed yet. Cheburashkas of artificial wool are also on sale, for 10 euros…

Digitization needed

The captivating chaos of the bazaar is that here, on several hectares, you can find absolutely any manifestation, whatever one may say, of a market economy. Cash and cards are accepted, ATMs are serviced and retail chains are represented – and at the same time, like thirty years ago, you can buy any clothes of no name, but in the right size, at a cheap price. Manufactured goods are already in full swing with food and catering. Although in general this gives the Riga Central Market the general characteristics of an oriental bazaar. Here we are definitely different from decorous Budapest, although in terms of brightness we are perhaps inferior to Mediterranean Barcelona.

Everywhere I go, I go to the market, but ours has definitely not become just a tourist attraction. Because while a lot of people in the country are barely making ends meet, the format of local trade is a matter of survival for them. And therefore it is quite logical that a municipal enterprise – and the central enterprise in its form of ownership is precisely the property of self-government – remains such. Those who have grown to higher formations in their socio-economic structure, come to the nearby high-flying trading houses. But there’s no need to convert the market into a supermarket, thank you. Moreover, you yourself will later thank you for the opportunity to sit in a fish pub over a glass of craft beer. Just think, the total is only a kilogram of steamed veal.



Therefore, on the part of the capital’s authorities, it would be possible, without making titanic efforts, to modernize the market, at least with its own regular page on the Internet, and entangle it with suitable social networks. After all, there is, alas, a lot of undeveloped space here – the same quarter of former warehouse-speakers, if in the direction of Gogol, looks neglected. If only he would get travel tenants, gentrification would begin, like at the embankment. But let’s hope that the most disastrous times of Covid are already behind us…

Photo by the author