RIGA
- Riga's Old Town is full of
music these days. On many
a street corner a musician,
complete with requisite hat or
guitar case full of small change,
can be heard playing away, while
performers showing off unique
acts tend to congregate on the
main tourist stretch leading up to
the Freedom Monument.
It is impossible to tell exactly
how many street performers 's
also known as buskers 's there are
in Riga. While the idea of instituting
a register for buskers has
been a topic of conversation in
the City Council in the past few
years, officials ultimately decided
not to institute any registry or
permit system.
In many cities in Western
Europe, buskers take to the
streets just so that people can
hear their music or see their art.
They harbor dreams of fame and
fortune and see busking as a path
to stardom, taking their cues
from the numerous world famous
performers that started out by
busking 's Eric Clapton, Bob
Dylan and Robbie Williams, to
name a few.
In Latvia it's most
often a different story however.
Here buskers, in need of scraping
enough together to earn a meager
living, often have no option but to
perform on the streets.
The Baltic Times spoke with
four of these performers to find
out what life is like for a busker
on the streets of Riga.
The painter
Andrej is a 39 year-old artist
from Estonia. He paints eerie
scenes from far away planets that
feature towering rock formations
and bright moons. His paintings
rely heavily on the contrast
between neon-bright objects on
dark, swirling backgrounds.
Heavy use of a paint scraper
allows him to produce the sharp
lines that seem to make the
moons rise out of the painting.
His performances often draw
large crowds. People huddle
around to see him produce the
fantastic images that he can sell
for anywhere from 15 to 200 lats.
Andrej is at peace when he
paints. While it is impossible to
tell what he is thinking under the
mask he wears as he works, as
soon as he takes a break his
countenance is filled with serenity.
He wears a black artist's
smock that makes him look
almost like a monk.
The painter said that busking
was his destiny. "We all have our
path in life, our calling, things
that we are drawn toward. We
are where we are, these things
just sort of happen."
While Andrej has never had a
bad experience performing on
the streets, he prefers the atmosphere
in Latvia to Western
Europe. He complained that people
in the West have no spirituality,
and that they always check
their account book before buying
a painting.
Andrej makes enough money
to live simply, and has the luxury
of only going out on the street to
perform when he feels like it. He
said that he could make four
times as much money as he does
now if he decided to work full
time, but he prefers to only paint
at dusk when the weather is nice.
Laura
Many of the buskers in
Latvia are not so lucky. Laura is
an old Russian woman who sits
on the outskirts of the main
squares in the Old Town and
plays her accordion. She is missing
her front row of teeth and
looks as if she has not been able
to afford a new instrument for 50
years.
"It is very difficult as a pensioner.
The way the state works, I
am not technically a citizen and
so the system makes it very hard
to live. I am only doing this
because I need the money," Laura
said.
She noted that while 95 percent
of the time people just
ignore her or drop a few santims
in her jar, sometimes drunks give
her problems.
The most difficult thing about
the job, however, is actually going
out onto the street. "I need three
or four cups of coffee and five or
six cigarettes to work up the
courage to go out and play every
morning," Laura said.
Despite the difficulties, Laura
does sometimes enjoy playing on
the street. "When I play, I am
happy," she said, explaining that
"it is a way of communicating
with the street, a way of complimenting
the street."
Fire Spirit
Dmitrijs Pudovs is a highly
professional busker, complete
with a business card and an
appointment book. He primarily
performs at special parties, mostly
for businesses, but he also
takes to the streets where he spits
flames and twirls fire sticks to
draw huge crowds.
"I play a lot of big parties
because they pay well, but I play
in the street for my soul," he said.
Pudovs learned a bit of juggling
in the circus, but has
acquired most of his skills simply
practicing on the street with
his accomplice, who plays the
bongo while Pudovs dances.
He
said that people always react differently
to his shows, sometimes
cheering wildly for simple tricks
and sometimes standing passively
after his best moves.
He explained that the worst
audience is often the richest, the
people from large firms. "At the
parties, sometimes the people
from big firms are very cold, they
cannot relax and enjoy the show.
They look at their boss before
they will do anything," he said.
Playing at special parties
allows him to continue his craft,
mostly indoors, throughout the
winter and still make enough
money to live comfortably.
The cello kid
She is one of the best street
musicians in Riga, and she is still
in high school. The teenage girl,
who asked not to be named, plays
intricate classical music that
seems to breathe life into the surrounding
buildings.
She said that almost everyone
is nice to her and that some people
even "give me flowers and
propose to marry me."
She plays on the street to help
support her family. She explained
that her mother had said that she
needed to go out and try to find a
way to make some money to help
the family make ends meet.
Busking is the only way that she
can help.
The more that she plays on
the street, the easier it gets. "In
the beginning I was not happy
about it, but now it's getting better.
It always better when I have
friends there to listen to me and
support me," she said.
