Ratvia

Tried to buy a beer at a shop after 10pm, but it was too late ! Finally I decided to get inside a bar! It was prohibited to sell a alcohol after 10pm. in this country. If so, I want to say that "Don't put it on a shelf !" Am I lack of moral sense ?

Around 30 hours have passed since I have got to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Riga is one of a beautiful city in Europe. This old town is listed on World Heritage Site I read somewhere. People in Japan are apt to going to those places which registered that Heritage. But in my opinion, the beautiful place which I lost for words are the place that not a lot of people visited before. If I can see that kind of place, I guess it is the shore in Norway. Has it been listed on that Heritage game?

Anyway, today I visited the Occupation Museum at the old town in Riga. The museum describes about how was the history in Latvia during the War in the 20th century. The independent year in Latvia is 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Before that in this country was a part of USSR and Germany. What I could learn from this museum was that how Stalin and Hitler had the power of these region not only Lativia and other Bultic countries but also Eastern part of Europe such as Poland, Belarus, Ukraine.

To be honest, I am not good at the history of those area. Every time when I came to those museum I can easily understand what was the history in each countries if I have enough studied before as well as English.
What I learned it from here was that, firstly, this is one of the country that has miserable history like in Poland because of undesirable war different from Japan. When I visited at a museum in Warszawa, I was told some history about Poland by Rafal, the person we incidentally met and decided to go to Gdansk. According to his information, Poland had foced to fight against Russia and Germany because they attacked unexpectedly. As the citizens in Warszawa they didn't have enough weapon and strategy, they cannot to win and keep themselves safe. After all, they occupied from them. Compared to Poland as well as Latvia, Japan was a country which tried to fight to the United State and other Asian countries like China, and Indochina region as we saw in pearl harbor. That was one of the differences between Poland-Baltic countries and Japan which I figured out during this journey even if we are the same country from the view point of defeated nation.

The entrance of the museum, there was 6 maps about the eastern Europe, Baltic, Nordic country and Russia putting those pictures in chrnological order. Those pictures were really helpful those person who haven't known much about the history like me! The first picture was in 1914, which has started the Warld War I, at that time Latvia was a part of Russia. And the second picture was from1921 to 1938, the age between the two wars. During that time there was a Russian revolusion establishing the USSR in 1917. And Latvia was independent briefly as the other part of European countries. However, during 1939 and 1940 USSR, Germany and Prussia started to invade each other to came across, those country which are Poland and Baltic countries became the battleground. As a result of that invasion in 1939, Latvia was a part of Russia in 1942, the border between USSR and the Nazis were something like (I am not sure) from Klaipeda in Lithuania nowadays to the border between Poland to Ukraine. And after that from 1945 to 1991, there were also a part of USSR and a lot of people who lived in Latvia were forced to move in some area in USSR, that is the one of the reason why about 40% people in Latvia is Russian. Anyway, they finally won to get independence in 1991. That was the brief history of here. But, during the WWII, Germany soldiers also made an influence on this area. The reality of the history was more complicated I think.

I still need a time to know about those history!

By the way, the old town in Riga as well as Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania were very beautiful such as Budapest in Hungary ! I really recommend to those person who want to see some old architectures as well as propaganda battle ! Small country and small town but it has a lot of places worth visiting and important places to learn those histories!

Now the time has come I will eat out but for a beer it was too late !

Yuji @ Riga, LV