Elevator

This cute elevator can be found at Dzelzceļa (Railway) health centre in Riga. Styled in Soviet vintage, they even got a lift-boy to operate it.
Photo by (c) Arnis Balcus

Straume

Although the factory Straume doesn't exist for ages, you can still find its plate and logo in Riga. In Soviet times it was well-know for its production of toys and coffee-grinders.
Photo by (c) Arnis Balcus

Friendship

Just a plate and tatty mural - that's all what is left from culture house Draudziba (Friendship) in Sarkandaugava, Riga.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus

PMK

This is a Soviet time decoration on an apartment block in Ulbroka near Riga. It says PMK in the middle of it.
Photo by (c) Arnis Balcus

A day in Liepaja

Last Sunday in Liepāja, West Latvia.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus

Back in 1991 (II)

Today the filming of barricades times took place on Aldara street in Old Riga.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus

Back in 1991

Today and yesterday a German film crew were filming a drama movie near Saeima (the parliament) in Old Riga. The events in the movie are taking place in January 1991, when the parliament was surrounded with barricades and hundreds of people gathered there to protect the building from a possible attack of Soviet military forces. The barricades were built on the next day after the Soviet forces in Lithuania had attacked the Vilnius TV Tower and killed 13 civilians.
Photos by (c) Zane Balcus

The fight

This memorial plate on A.Briana street in Riga says that "here in this house an illegal printing house was publishing the communist party's newspaper Cīņa (The Fight)". The plate dates back to Soviet times as in context of today's political conjuncture such fact is of no significance. All political parties, including the communist party, were banned during the president's K.Ulmanis dictatorship between 1934 and 1940.
Photo by (c) Arnis Balcus

Talsi

Talsi is known as the town of nine hills and two lakes and is one of most beautiful and calm towns in Northwest Latvia, some 120 km from Riga. It has a lot of old wooden houses, small quiet streets, shabby shops and a few Soviet time symbols, such as the "Kursa" sign for the supermarket, or even older signs - in the second photo from the bottom one can spot a shop ad from Tsar times covered with another sign of "Talsi consumer society" from 1920s or 1930s.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus

Hammer & sickle in Vienna

Communist symbols hammer and sickle can be spotted even in Vienna, Austria.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus

Leningrad

St.Petersburg has dozens of Soviet Union staff, from statuesques to manhole caps, which sometimes can make you feel as if the difference between Leningrad and St.Petersburg is only the name.
Photos by (c) Arnis Balcus