It's easy to tell when the spring has arrived in Riga. The sky is bluer. The birds are chirpier. The trees start to bud. And workmen start to assemble the accursed beer gardens in the Old Town.
As I was walking home the other day, I was amazed to see them already at it, first in Dome Square, and then Livu Square. The parasols were going up, the raised wooden floors being laid down. They resemble some sort of do-it-yourself toy, quickly assembled in time to cash in on the first whisper of warm weather, and as quickly dismantled to get away from the encroaching chill of autumn.
I have seen many hellish things in my time, but not much can compare with the horror that is the Old Town beer garden at the height of summer.
A brain-hemorrhaging cacophony of karaoke assaults the innocent passer by at every step. Or, even worse, some of the beer gardens (for there are several, if you're able to distinguish where one begins and another one ends) blare out schalger music. The Russians used to play especially slow and somber tango music over loudspeakers to torment the besieged Germans in WWII. To my mind, however, schlager would have been a much more appropriate instrument of psychological torture. It's the sound of madness personified, and a none too smart madness at that. It makes me want to stuff my ears full with cement whenever I hear so much as a bouncy bar of it.
I have never been able to understand what the attraction is with the Old Town beer gardens, other than the fact that they are in the open air. Tourists and locals seem to love them judging by how packed they get. They drink, get drunk, shout, shoot off, occasionally stagger off to relieve themselves in a portapotty, and then stagger back again, as happy as bunnies.
Am I missing something? Or is it just me who thinks that these beer gardens transform the Old Town into the tackiest of holiday holes? What wisdom will I learn from tourists' T-shirts this year, I wonder. Grin and beer it. What a sad waste of a beautiful public space.
