Adolescent Sublime

Pearls in the North

Riga

Where is it? My friends that don't read the Financial Times were genuinely challenged to place me anywhere on the map when I telephoned from Riga. Riga, Latvia, has become a fabulous city since the country gained independence. “The New Prague” in the eyes of some, and “the Pearl of the North” as Saxons of old referred to it. I am finding that many young American bankers have joined mature European artists and crisply smiling Nordic executives in remaking the city. But into what? Pearl of the North, or Baltic Banana Republic? Grim rows of Soviet era apartment buildings still house the majority of Riga’s working folk. On the pearl side, the Stockholm Business School acquired, and restored to ornate, blue-cream perfection, a bunch of Art Nouveau buildings in the city centre. It turns out that Riga has the biggest collection of early 20th century architecture, including famous buildings by Eisenstein.

Riga home to half of the 2.5 million population of Latvia. Rejoicing in an enduring cultural revival, Latvia is also zooming towards EU membership. But many issues remain unresolved as I gathered from a lengthy beer chat with my fellow train travelers on the way back to Moscow. Being Latvian means speaking Latvian but for many Russian pensioners living in the city, it is a near impossible feat. Almost all valuable industrial assets of the nation were acquired by Swedes, Norwegians and Finns in the first years of Perestroyka. Riga is experiencing a real estate boom, with foreigners snapping up fancy downtown properties, and banks giving 100% financing on shopping malls. Latvia boasts probably the most expensive cell phone service, ($.40-$.60/minute) ridiculously expensive clothing, ($60 t-shirts are not uncommon) and a conspicuously white population. A midweek visit to a night club featuring hip-hop and electronica beats, devolved to a discussion with an inebriated young Latvian, adamant that “Latvia is for Latvians, we don’t want any negroes or Jews here”. In a country experiencing newfound independence, whose history consists in equal measures of German and Russian conquest, even patches of xenophobia represent an ugly reminder that all is not yet well in the European psyche.

Danes may be the perfect Europeans: open and congenial citizenry with a liberal royal family. Perfect strangers walked us to the places we needed to go. After filling up at the gas station, you can pay your Krones to a truly attentive cashier. Money could be changed anywhere, busy waiters took time to find for us the exact address of the Danska Design Center. And where else but in Denmark, will you find a place the like of Christiania? An old hippy commune situated directly opposite the main seat of the country's government, it has evolved into a quiet and unpretentious artists' ghetto. Anyone can come in, smoke a little cannabis resin, drink some coffee or beer, maybe play a game of dominoes or write in their life's journal. (No hard drugs, no hard liquor.) We walked through it twice. Teens played backgammon after school, middle-aged business people read newspapers in peace, granola girls sold good-for-you food, a prim mother and daughter wandered innocently through the streets.

Alex Chub, composer of the very funky grooves featured in our trailer, has lived here since business became ruthless in the New Russian version of his native Siberia. Today, he and his Danish girlfriend offer to take us to the Danska Design Center. Danes are very big on hyper-functional design. But visiting the Design Center left me cold and wondering about our material culture. Danish design is about crafting sleek, functional and perfectly unpleasant objects for today's corporate environs. And beyond, exhibits include bright alloy artificial legs, penis-shaped necklaces, plenty of Bang and Oluffsen and not one but two models of folding bicycle suitable for cross-continental travel. It made me shiver, especially looking at the photo collage of fashion models scarified with corporate logos. Bubbling computer screens and the comforting hum of electricity all around made me feel lonely. The Danish language is a combination of French, German, English and Dutch. The more luxurious Italians and Spaniards, apparently never made it to historical Denmark. Many older apartments here have no showers, but every street has its bicycle lane, even the very old ones. Bicycle design has really reached its ultimate expression here. Weightless, sturdy and elegantly shaped beasts crowd many a museum and storefront display.

Hamburg

Copenhagen to Hamburg is a 160 km/per hour breeze on the no-limits autobahn, my filmmaker, friend and husband at the wheel. The longer I stay outside of the “obligations-and-structure” of the working world, the more appreciative I become of small things in life. A hot cup of coffee after a long walk in the rain; an unhurried excursion through an artist’s studio with explanations of what he likes and dislikes about his own work; flipping through my address book, matching names of friends to the stack of postcards I've collected over the last two months: London, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Riga, Copenhagen....
Hamburg has involved daily dancing in various reggae clubs, domain of decidedly hit-and-miss white male DJs in their mid-20s. Nascent styles emerge from the mixture of perfectly boring German pop with the choppy rhythms of ragga, ska and calypso.