Failed States, Who Are They?

Foreign Policy has their annual 2012 failed states index out and Latvia is listed as "borderline." This data actually originates over at the Fund For Peace where there is more detail for those so inclined. 


Using such indicators as Demographic Pressures, Refugees / IDP’s, Group Grievance, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline,Deligitimation of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalized Elites & External Intervention Latvia is nowhere near the top 59 ranked failed states which has Somalia at #1 with a score of 114.9 and Mozambique in the #59 position with a score of 82.4. Nevertheless Estonia and Lithuania rate better than Latvia at #143/47.5 and #149/44.2 respectively, Latvia sitting at #136/51.9. Just for some added perspective Greece is currently ranked at #138/50.4  on the list and Finland wins with a #177/20.0. 


I take all lists with a grain of salt, like financial lists which seem to need Latvia's one time GDP boost to bolster the internal devaluation or austerity measures which some politicians are wedded to in spite of many top economists advising more spending. But if you take as much of the information into account as you are able to absorb then a person stands a better chance of cutting through the sound bites and selective rendering and shilling in the media.


I personally think that it will be a long time before Latvia offers a comfortable living for the average person. As a property owner who took a bath when the real estate bubble burst in 2008 I read stories like this with a frown. Latvia is rapidly becoming a country of haves & have nots. 


But it's not quite a failed state, yet.

Tourists

You hate them, right? Not really, they are the bread and butter of this town providing more employment than RIX but damn, when I take the train in and see that huge ferry docked I am so tempted to simply turn around and go home.


It's the way they gum up the normally smooth flow of my day you see! The pedestrians slowing foot traffic as they rubber neck and walk down the boulevard three or four abreast. The backpacks which they fail to allow for as they climb in and out of buses and trolleys almost knocking you off your feet as they pirouette around looking for a seat or place to stand, too dazed & confused to remove the damn thing and carry it by their side. I could go on and on but yesterday gifted me a sterling example of how a foreigner can get a brain freeze when in a strange country and presented with a very simple situation that they just cannot figure out.


I am a tourist myself many times in the course of a year, just not here anymore. I now live here. But I like Italy a lot for example, once lived in Venice and know enough to enter my tourist mode when it is required which involves keeping my eyes open extra wide and antenna close to the ground, pay attention as it were. Yesterday I was doing something I never do which is shop at the men's clothing department on the second floor of Stockman's. They had a sale on pyjamas you see, 40% off...well anyway that's not important but what you should know is the price tags have two values shown. One in lvl and the other in Euro because while Latvia is part of Europe it doesn't adopt the Euro until 2014, something apparently lost on some visitors. So this dual price on the tag is simply a convenience for those who haven't wrapped their mind around the exchange rate yet, doesn't mean that you can pay in Euro, you must pay in lvl. But try to explain that to the older Turkish couple who were holding up the cashier at the check out as they tried to make a 65 lvl purchase with Euros having only 45 lvl in local currency on their person. The cashier was trying to explain to them in very good English which is the default language after Russian that they didn't have enough lvl's and needed to go to the ground floor to change their Euros, but they don't speak English let alone Russian. This just went on and on in a circular fashion with the line behind me getting longer and longer and the cashiers patience just running out and being replaced with a rage face at the inability of this couple to comprehend that they could not escape the reality of the situation without going downstairs and changing some Euros. So finally after I figured out their nationality I pulled out my phone and using the very fine Google Translate App I quickly had them on their way. Simply really. But good lord how dense are you to not have a method of dealing with the host countries language. I make allowance for the couples age but come on.


Still, that wasn't the worst I've seen in my travels. That honour goes to the clearly frazzled American dad in Venice, Italy who managed in his frustration to alienate everyone around him and leave his own family crying tears of embarrassment in the middle of their huge pile of luggage as he waved a limp wrinkled printout of an email hotel reservation at the attendant on the crowded public water taxi demanding in English that someone tell him where to go. Ever been on a public water taxi in Venice on the Grand Canal at the peak of the tourist season? It is considered a hazardous area where one misstep on the heaving crowded surface of the boat can have you in the water crushed against the dock. The attendants try to safely herd these huge volumes of people on and off the boat finally sliding a metal gate into place which is the signal for the captain to gun the engines and take off for the next stop. It's a very dangerous ballet and people who screw up the flow are dealt with quickly. The dad had clearly gone through some sort of hell to get his brood and their mountain of luggage to the Rio Alto bridge, no mean feat but was now so out of control that everyone simply averted their gaze as the attendant coolly responded to his demands to be told where to go with a "not here". He surprised me actually as it would not have been my first choice for a response.


I just couldn't bring myself to tell the guy that 5 feet to his right was a line of motoscafi, private water taxi for hire whose drivers were observing this meltdown with bemusement.

pic taken from foot of Rio Alto bridge

How To Miss an Appointment in Riga

If you're a gambler, live in a suburb and need to commute by train, just blindly follow whatever train schedule is available without leaving some wiggle room. Murphy's Law will come into effect directly.


At the beginning of every month using my cell phone camera I would take a photo of the new train schedules leaving in both directions from my local station then print a hard copy in order to post it on my kitchen wall but ink cartridges for my old Brother printer aren't cheap and between Mrs. T and I we are pretty hard on office supplies. So not finding any domestic train schedule phone Apps which are available for other forms of transportation (Stops Riga is an example) and as a measure of economy I went directly to the Train website thinking that they would keep that schedule current and then saved the screenshot to my photo-editor where I cleaned the image up a bit and sent it my Docs to Go Desktop and synced my phone. That solved my printer supplies problem but it still doesn't explain the odd missing train! What usually works fairly well if your Russian or Latvian language skills are up to the task is calling information at 1188 who will then re-direct your call if necessary and you can confirm a particular trains departure/arrival time. But it costs between 50 centimes and 1 lvl per call and I wonder what schedule they are using! The same one I have? And it still doesn't help you if there is no train.


It all sounds very minor since most residents use very specific trains at the same time every day as they are doing something repetitive like going to work if you are so lucky as to have a job. But if one's schedule is not set in stone but still involves being punctual a missed train can mean a missed trolly or bus connection in Riga and a missed appointment. And unless you are a tourist this is generally a bad deal.


Granted there are many reasons for a schedule to get messed up. People do fall on the tracks occasionally, by accident or design. And there is a definite increase in maintenance or freight traffic which has to be accommodated on a line which changes from a double to single line at various points. I can't imagine how a slow freighter from Ventspils complicates things.


But the bottom line is that in the summer with increased traffic you are just bound to have a train do the Twi-Light Zone on you.


It's still cheaper than owning and maintaining a vehicle tho.

The Grim Reaper forgot his scythe.

You Are Not The Boss Of Me!

What is the business model with the iDea Store and the Apple store in Riga? Both I have visited attempting a simple purchase of a Leopard and Lion upgrade disc which would take 5 minutes in North America. I have my reasons for wanting a physical disc but that is neither here nor there. In both establishments one is presented with two employees at the counter, a male totally fixated on whatever was on the screen in front of him flanked by a female who was obviously assigned the odious task of dealing with the great unwashed and while she was genuinely attempting to be helpful was clearly unable to answer my question so was thereby forced to attempt communication with her fellow (male) employee who remained immersed in his screen. Like a rooster.

What was on that computer screen anyway? Apple company intranet investment stats? Pr0n? Those guys just flat out refused to take their eyes off it and preferred to communicate in grunts best translated as “app store, not here”. I could’ve changed my question entirely and received the same answer. I suspect it is simply that if you are not purchasing hardware product off the shelf they have better things to do. No "Genius Bar" here!

My suggestion is that Apple, Riga fire all the male managers or top tier (male) floor people and replace them with their female underlings who clearly understand the purpose of the store and the value of not pissing off the only customer in the establishment.


I'll never waste my time in these places again.

Cafe' Review #1

De Gusto Cafe', Riharda Vāgnera iela 16, Old Town, Riga;


The first in a series. I will be documenting my cafe' visits here as many establishments that I used to enjoy several years ago are no longer in business, much to my disappointment.


This one can be a bit intimidating to a fresh visitor due to it's fanciful interior but it is actually very comfortable and not at all pretentious. And certainly no more expensive than any other cafe' in the old town. In actuality it is a restaurant but I almost never eat out preferring my own kitchen so these reviews won't deal with the menu.


My wife and I have a routine, 100g of Balsam and coffee's along with a couple of pastries. The cost is almost always around 7 lats and unless markedly different I won't be commenting too much about that. The honey cake here was delicious and there was a nice selection of tarts and breads. Four tiny tables outside on the street if the day is nice but no guard rail or separation from the vehicles or foot traffic as the area is just not that big. My biggest complaint about the old town is the vehicular traffic. There shouldn't be any allowed. Delivery and Emergency vehicles only. There are too many monkeys hot rodding around the narrow streets like they own the place. My rant, I shall include one per review to break things up.


Fresh juice, free water and a WC for the needy but not necessarily paying customer type which is normal here. Don't try that in Venice folks!

But the back room is very interesting and not shown here to provide some mystery and a reason to visit with plates in the ceiling, and what must surely be a rarity. A cat sleeping on a heat register. Well, that isn't so rare in Latvia after all but this cat and heat register is made totally from felt and maybe the cat is in need of a little fluffing so as to get rid of that road-rash look but whatever. Maybe you should probably just focus on the 16th century furniture and take in the ambiance. Very friendly wait staff speaking Latvian/Russian/English and probably some other languages as well.

C5 Galaxy Leaves Riga?

Something shook my flat early this morning! It sometimes happens that there are tremors when a heavy freight train rumbles by but never like this. I was afraid the pictures would come off the wall.

The C5 probably won't be flying in and out of RIX very often and for that I am thankful. Since commercial flights have increased it has become very noisy and I live 10 km's from the airport. The train is bad enough, the addition of heavy air traffic makes for an additional annoyance.

Latvian Success Story

I don't usually hang around this site very much but it recently caught my eye, especially after the IMF's visit to this country last week.