It was just before midnight.

Riga canal is virtually separating Old Riga from the rest of the city. The bright spire of the Opera House marks the beginning of Old Riga that rests on the left side of the canal

The only thing that was left was the twisted symbol of the era. Only not yellow anymore. In bronze.

This set up was created and installed on Riga 800 anniversary in 2001. The symbol of 800 years history is designed in a way it can be readable from all three roads conjoining here.

And then it became very still. Like frozen in time. A complete silence. And suddenly everyone was gone.

Just few words today...
Sarkandaugava - 150 years old edge of Riga, its nothing very strategic or fascinating, except this peaceful panorama at the canal of Daugava. I like to do calm waters, they hold a great potential for successful photography.

- I can see some purple colours. It's a vision of a future I feel I can trust.

A little more about cobble stones. Here's a good example of well leveled street. The camera is at it's lowest point to show you that Hummer really is not the only one to handle this street with no trouble, believe me, it is very OK for a motorbike as well, I just tried it myself. The rest of the picture is to show you one of the ordinary, still very lovely looking houses in the centre of Riga. Many of them are the Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) buildings I find attractive especially at night.

- How will it affect the remaining ones?

The building that has this wall painting is on the street I posted yesterday. I think it kind of reflects what the street life was here some hundred years ago. IMHO I am not sure if this is a kind of graffiti that should be classified as vandalism.

- Is this the only way? To forget everything!

Nothing extreme today. There are so many cobbled streets in Riga that despite their visual appeal I'm occasionally starting to dislike driving on them:) Most of them are in the Old Town though this is fairly out of it and the two floor wooden buildings are adding to the lovely atmosphere.

- We must do a ritual which would affect our memory for ever.

Tomorrow night all dressed in white they will go crazy for nine hours. Its for 14 000 people and the price for the ticket varies between LVL35 and LVL175. That's between $70 and $350. Sensation White is the first time in Riga, but the rest of the world (or just Europe) should be familiar with the event, aren't you?
Should you have spare
€6 000 or $7 800 you'll get a private lodge stuffed with alcohol and snacks for 15 persons.
No, no , no - I am not going and this is not an advert because all tickets are already sold out. For more info click on the post title.

- What do you think of this from your hart?

If you think that these four twelve storey commie block “high rises” on the right bank of Daugava in Kengargs are sort of exclusive you might be wrong. The location is excellent though the architecture doesn’t attract the buyers that much because they have drawbacks like no soundproofing, no insulation and windows are half rotten except if owners have saved enough money to replace them and improve energy efficiency there. The photo was taken from drainpipe stretching some 10 meters into the water. There was no stench, so I guess the pipe was not a sewerage outlet.

It was dark and they looked a bit like goats.

Tonight twilight turned island landscape into surreal oriental or African prairie sunset. Behind the camera is me Karlis, Kundzinsala peninsula housing poor people as well as few rich ones, marine container terminal and other cargo facilities. Once I saw here a local oldtimer lady with some 20 goats passing through this remote area being flooded each spring by waters of river Daugava. And yes, the floodwaters enter houses of people living in Kundzinsala every year. How romantic is that?

The brightest one in a middle with unspeakable stillness.

This is Riga Gulf in Riga resort city Jurmala (seaside). Amazingly calm today - never seen it like that. Quite a lot people were swimming, some of them sun bathing or playing volley. I didn't turn the camera on them I just walked along the shore occasionally jumping in and out of the water watching waves spreading towards the sun beams.

They all sat down..

This is an evening in Riga Dome Square with people having beer or whatever. The Dome church in the background is 800 years old and it wasn't built in one go. What you can see is a result of interactive process over centuries and haven't seen significant changes in its shape only over last 200 years.

- Stay. I fell w'll get something wonderful, something that'll inspired us, - said the other one.

From top left:
- Very odd exhibition of illuminated fancyworks and a car in the middle
- 1991 Barricades Museum with artificial fire and people watching TV reports on 1991 USSR collapse
- Railway Museum. You can see four wheeled small yellow motorized cart (???) for I don't know what use.
- Figurines in the Naive Art Museum

This isn't it - its just a fraction of what
I photographed - there were more than 80 museums open yesterday and I couldn't attend even half of them:)

- It's starting to get crowdy. I wouldn't mind staying here for a bit longer, but... - said one of them thinking he'll be leaving the show.

Tonight we had an annual event called The Night In Museum. Everyone could attend any museum for free up until 2am in the morning with public transport being provided to the museums free of charge. More than 100 thousand people attended this huge party. It was so surreal! What's inside the box (museums) I'll post tomorrow:)

Pictures from the top left:
- Port City Naive Art Museum and exposition of Weird Bicycles
- Fireworks :)
- The Old Town - most of the museums are located there
- "Melngalvju Nams" (House of Blackheads) and Occupation Museum

- How are we going to check out?, - the last guest was asking.

This hotel is located close to the old town and I work here five days a week. The facade of the building is changing colour every 20 seconds or so going through red-blue-purple cycle though on weekends only. The Reval (now Radisson BLU) SKY BAR is on the 26th floor - it is very popular amongst locals and visitors - totally overcrowded on weekends.

The sun was setting. The sky was yellow. The distant reflections of some tall buildings were spooky.

We had to wait for the sun to slide behind the building before being able to do another sun set. Thanks to my friend Karlis who managed to "place" three seagulls in arrangement resembling almost perfect triangle. The Riga rail bridge in background is the oldest one crossing river Daugava.

The party was going to end soon and all that's gonna be left was the flower.

The party in Andrejsala (wanna be Riga SOHO). The quality is not that good because I had few drinks and I was laying on the bench when making a pic, though I thought you should see this because of illuminated flowers and the guy who accidentally stud like this for 4 seconds.

Everyone knew, this was the end of the Extreme Dance School. There was nothing left to rebuild.

I'm wondering how many dance school members they are able to fit in in this "building" and what kind of extreme dancing it is, how extreme does it get? Are they sort of dancing on the edge of a roof or being locked up air tightly until lacking oxygen:) Actually such school exists and they do HIP HOP and Breakdance lessons.It seems this is just a kind of addvert in graffiti.

Padegs was leaning back against the wall with a smirk on his face and a yellow flower in his hand.

The guy with the daffodil is painter Karlis Padegs. He died in 1940 and he didn't get a chance to ride through Riga on a trolleybus because it was introduced in 1947. Trolleybus operates on electricity like tram only instead of rail tracks there are cable routes. The yellow building behind is Latvian University.

- Hold on, we're trying to see a bigger picture here.

This is another shot illustrating the place people came to to celebrate the Day Of Victory. I wanted to post it so you can see the monument and dates engraved in a wall as well.

- Exactly. Only this fact has been the source of the misery so far.

...of ghosts were we took night shots from and posted one picture on 8th of May. It was scary, actually too scary to do it again. When we were on top of the tower we heard something heavy falling down. I don't know what was it, but I was wondering if that is a part of stairs:)

- We are like cats. Always landing on feet, ha!

Since I was standing on the wall that was literally falling apart the lady with her kid in the picture was worried that I have lost it. I smiled and said that the art is demanding sacrifices and explained that I am fascinated by the contrasts of this place - the new building called Thomson Terraces, the public bins, and this crashing wall.

- We are here for something big

I mentioned it earlier - South Bridge is under construction and the photo again is a result of efforts of me and my friend Karlis. In order to capture it before the sun set I drove through Riga like crazy because it is a bit away from the center. Police didn't stop us this time:)

- We are not gonna get any answers here anyway, - said one of them

The Russian community in Riga is pretty huge and they were celebrating The Day of Victory (some 7000 people were there). I took plenty of photos. At one point I climbed up in a tree to get a better view, though after I took some five shoots police spotted me and asked to get myself back on the ground - this is when I had to land:)

The bright spots of the World.

To get to the place where this picture was taken from (I'll post it tomorrow) took a lot of courage and wouldn't be possible without the help of my friend Karlis who insured his camera is providing the quality of this image.

Vansu.

Yesterdays picture was taken from the left bank of Daugava. The foggy picture of Riga is from the opposite side of river Daugava (right bank). The 595m long and launched in 1981 this is the latest of three car bridges. There is another one for the rail traffic. The construction of the fourth car bridge (South Bridge - pictures are comming soon:)) is in progress.

Rika (Rīga)

This is what it's all about, finally I share the whole picture of this fabulous city.
There is a bank-high rise on the left bank of river Daugava, it marks a new part of Riga and reflects a beautiful sunset, which means, that night life on the other side of Daugava can begin. That is Vecriga (Old Riga), 800+ years - this city has lots to tell and hide, give and take...

Yehoshua

I live just behind the New Gerthrude's church actually. Don't worry, I am not deaf yet and it is because they don't ring those bells for an hour three times a week, if you know what I mean:). I saw someone suggesting in another Daily Photo blog (here) it looks similar to the Grace Church.

Dewos

I thought it is pretty cool to see this Zeus statue built on the former electronics manufacturing site - VEF complex. This used to be kind of industrial site in soviet times. To be honest I noted it only after I decided on posting for CITY DAILY PHOTO. I am just wondering what is it he is holding in his hand? I think it is lightning

Looking down at all the mess from the Fourth Floor.

I am so sorry I missed out the theme day ("picture of another city") of the Daily Photo community. Now, I am making it up and posting a picture of Edinburgh "skyline". I took it last summer from a bar called Forth Floor. As the name suggests it is on the fourth floor. The taxi driver took me there and told me it is the highest one in the city. Not that high, is it? I am sure there must a proper Sky Bar. Nevertheless the view on Edinburgh Castle was spot on.

All of them ended up at the same place. Rainy, misty and dark and a bit green.

Lively scenes of people giving food to birds is quite common in Riga. Though this old lady is special. Regardless rain she left her tram stop shelter to feed them. I spotted sea mews, pigeons and ducks around her.

- Isn't it too late for the white forces to show up?

No, its not. Quite opposite, we had plenty of sunshine and cloudless sky, though despite it the day was unusually chilly. However the looks of this snow white apple tree in the midst of the Riga harbour warmed me up a bit.