Saturday, February 21, 2009

After the Snow

Comes the clear blue sky. Warmed by a Balsams coffee I took the bus out of town to Riga's Motor Museum. The star exhibit, along with Kruschev's Lincoln and a Packard Super Eight that belonged to the King of Romania, is a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow ploughed into a truck by none other than Leonid Brezhnev, whose waxwork dummy looks like it's receiving the kind of personal attention which would cause most of us to lose control for a moment or two.

Behind the museum is a Soviet motorcycle race track and Bikernieku Forest, where much of Riga's Jewish population was murdered in 1941. It's a sombre place, used now by cross-country skiiers, people with big dogs and young kids with sledges. We asked the way to the Holocaust memorial. "It's very far," the first two people said. "There are many memorials," added the next.

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