riga-nights-out

Nights out in Riga (Latvia)

Riga is supposed to be great for nightlife. There is also, apparently, a dark side to partying in Riga.

Riga’s old town is the compact central district that houses some of the city’s more popular jaunts. Two streets in the town have a number of pubs and clubs that are “controlled by the Russian mafia.” A common scam goes something like this – a man is walking on said street. Said man is approached by beautiful woman who asks said man to buy her a drink. Man enters bar with woman on said street, and the woman orders a drink. Man gets stuck with 300$ bill for 1-2 drinks. When the guy asks for the menu, snazzy bartender pulls out special menu with 200$ drinks on there. Man tries to leave, bouncers prevent exit. Man uses credit card to pay. Man fleeced, Mafia happy.

It was against a backdrop of warnings like these that we went out, so you can imagine that we were more than a little suspicious of EVERYTHING.

After scoping out a few bars, I heard live blues playing while walking across an alley. Naturally, I was drawn to it, like a dungbeetle to, well. So we walked up to the front of the pub, and these two old Russian guys inside saw us and frantically started waving, trying to get us to enter. My first thought was “man, I like my kidneys.” But then we looked again, and the guys seemed, well, quite alright. We entered tentatively and walked up to the bar. The bar was quite empty, and only had 6 people inside – the two Russian guys who waved us in, an old couple, and two bearded motorcyclists wearing their leather cuts/jackets.

Again, I JUST reached season 5 of sons of anarchy, and wanted to walk out of the bar all ten fingers intact. So again, we considered leaving. But THEN, the motorcycle uncles smiled at us and waved. That was our cue. We confidently waved to the barkeep, and ordered our beers.

That first sip of beer was incredible – it tasted like fear being conquered. During the set break, we chatted with the two Russian Latvians, who turned out to be really nice guys! One of them owned his own copy shop, and he showed us a picture of him with the goalie of the Russian ice hockey team from the 80s. So that was fun.

I guess the moral of the story is that when it comes down to fight vs flight, ignore your intuition and stick around! (I’m kidding)

Live blues @ Monkey’s Bar

This first bar we were at was called Monkey’s bar. http://www.barradar.lv/lv/bars/1830-monkeys-bar (Can’t find the official website).

After the blues, we headed to another, more popular live music place. We were deciding between a Russian-ish club and this particular ‘local Latvian hangout’, which were right opposite each other. Outside the club, we met another bunch of Latvian folks, who had just spent the entire day at the comic convention that was on in Riga. Suffice it to say that we got along jusssst fine. We chatted for a while and the four of them convinced us to go with the folk place instead.

The place had an unassuming main entrance, but after descending a flight of stairs and walking through a tunnel we entered massive underground cavern, with a pretty large stage. The band was playing local pop interspersed with stuff we knew, and was pretty good. The place had a massive selection of beers on tap (which were again around the 2EUR mark, sigh). The beer flowed and platters platted. Undoubtedly an icon in Riga, and a must if anyone ever visits Riga.

The live music continues

Oh look, a picture of a bar

Really good finger food. All this for 12 EUR!

Pub: Folk Club Ala Basement http://www.folkklubs.lv/

After, we headed to a popular, ‘mainstream’ club in Riga, located in the centre of old town. We were worried about door policy (which can be unpredictable in Europe in general), but had no trouble, as the place was quite empty. Generally a good experience, with regular top 40, rnb, etc. Decent chilled out crowd, but hardly decadent. That would probably be in the more ‘Russian’ style club. Drinks at EUR 5, were a bit on the steep side (again, by Latvian standards).

Old phone cameras and dark clubs, not the best of friends

Club: Kalku Varti http://www.clubkv.lv/lv/

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