Baltics24: Day 11 – Riga
The Riga Aviation Museum is a museum in a very different sense of the word to how we would generally understand it. It’s out by the Riga airport, so it takes about 20-30 minutes to get to, including a bit of forest where you start to wonder if you’ll ever be seen again. Through this, we pulled up at a gate, or just past a gate as the driver didn’t realise we’d arrived, where we could see some old planes and helicopters sitting just the other side. There was a a strip of razor-wire atop the fence, an opened padlock on the gate, and a number to call, and after a while a man answered and said he’d be there in 1 minute. Maybe 3 minutes later, riding a bicycle, appeared a gent who must have been in his 70s or 80s, shirtless, who simply demanded 20 euros (10 each) in cash, no card, just cash. This kinda stuffed us up, as we’ve not needed cash, have barely seen any ATMs, and everywhere has shoved a card reader at us the minute we’ve gone to pay.
Not the Riga Aviation Museum. Cash only. No ATM in sight. Fortunately L had 10 euro, and she wonderfully made the sacrifice to let me through. The old guy was at least kind enough to let L sit in a chair in the shade by the gate while I went off and indulged in plane-geekery. I owe her, and I’m sure she’ll remind me.
The Riga Aviation Museum, cash only. I’m pretty sure that there aren’t any dictionary definitions of museum that allude to ATMs, toilets, gift shops, custom merchandise, well marked signage, cafes, guides or accessibility. I’d even guess the definitions don’t specify that a museum has to comprise any buildings, with walls, ceilings, that kind of thing. Pretty sure that having a huge ditch running through the middle that can only be traversed by a poorly signed thin bridge isn’t a valid criteria for exclusion, either. So far, so good, we’re still within the “vibe” of museum.
A less semantically generous, more pedantic person might suggest that a more apt description of the Riga Aviation Museum is a junkyard full of ex-soviet equipment, military and civil, plus some other random aviation-related paraphernalia, scattered around a block of land. Someone on the spectrum might have a challenge reconciling this place with what a museum is supposed to be. But if that person was also an aviation geek, they’d be a pig in shit.
Whatever else this museum may or may not be, it’s probably the largest pile of MiGs every dumped in the one paddock, it’s a bingo card full of good numbers: 15, 21, 23, 27, 29 and, and and and and and, one of the very very few complete examples (in countries fairly easily accessible) of the star of the show, the MiG 25 “Foxbat”. As awesome as all those others were, that was the one I came to see.
Warning: a potted history that is definitely not wikipedia-compliant follows. Feel free to skip this paragraph. The MiG-25, when first seen in grainy cold war recon photos, made the West shit itself. This thing looked big, longer than an Avro Lancaster, with big wings that must have meant it would turn on a dime. It had big wings, big engines, and looked like it would fuck up any plane the West had. Then an Israeli radar tracked one of them doing Mach 3.2, making it at least as fast as the US’s SR-71 spyplanes. The US shat itself in so many different directions at once, stopped sending its spyplanes over the USSR, binned just about every planned plane in development, and basically had nightmares over what they thought the MiG-25 could do. Then in 1976, a soviet pilot defected, and he did this by landing a MiG-25 in Japan. US engineers and Japanese toymakers couldn’t get to that plane fast enough, and while they did the right thing and gave it back to the USSR eventually, it was after they took it apart, and likely pissed themselves at what they saw. Turns out that this huge single-seat plane was huge because it was heavy, the USSR didn’t make it from titanium, they made it from steel. The MiG-25 was basically two huge heavy engines, which needed a huge heavy fuselage, which needed huge heavy wings. Sure it could reach Mach 3.2, but in doing so the engines would start eating themselves and screws and bolts would likely be coming loose all over the place. They found the average transistor radio had more electronics than the MiG-25, which used tubes and valves and stuff that wouldn’t have been out of place in a 1940s television. And that promise of manouverability? Nope, this plane flew best in a straight line. The US breathed a big sigh of relief (and kept on with making F-14s, F-15, and F-16s, and resumed spy flights), the Japanese made some really neat toys, and the Soviets, already knowing the plane’s faults, shrugged.
The MiG-25, stuff of aviation-geek legend, just sits out among the other planes, exposed to the elements, where everyone can walk up to and touch, walk around, sit on the wheels, check out the nuts and bolts and screws, talk to the little ginger cat that comes up to check you out, and bask in the awe of a plane that threatened by existing. If it could think, talk, and read, I’m sure it would look over what I’ve written and just smugly say, “I might have weighed 20 tonnes, but I could carry another 15 tonnes, fly at Mach 2.8, climb to 20,000 metres in under 9 minutes, and you’re struggling to get up 97 steps to your hotel without stopping.”
Smug MiG-25 (SMuG-25?) aside, the paddock has a number of other awesome soviet machines, several large helicopters including a Mil Mi-6, an absolutely massive Tu-22, and some hopefully disarmed anti-aircraft missiles. Among this are pieces of aircraft, jet engines, propellers, runway signs, gangways, random airport surplus, cockpits, fragments of things that will never fly again. I guess it’s a museum of sorts, definitely worthwhile if you’re an aviation geek. Just remember to bring cash.
We took a car back to the main Riga Central Markets, our driver quite chatty asking about where we’d been and how much did we like beer. The outside of the markets are stunning, the result of some 1920s recycling when a newly independent Latvia found it had a couple of Zeppelin hangers left behind by the Germans, so they put up some walls and used the hanger parts for the roof. The result is one of Europe’s largest markets, 5 halls of meat, cheese, bread, vegetables, and stuff, not to mention much more outside around the edges. I grabbed some smoked/cured pork chunks that looked tasty (the seller was a fierce woman who didn’t want to do slices nor understand what 100g is), and a roll of Uzbek NON-bread (no idea what the full deal is with this, but have read lots of good things about it and I can’t believe it’s not bread). L grabbed about 1kg of cherries and raspberries.
We headed to the Burzma foodhall in the hope of getting these near-mythical gf dumplings, but it appears that the place is no longer there, but there are two other franchises around. They had a cafe with a bunch of non-standard fare in a bain-marie, random pork dishes, cheesy chicken chunks, mystery meat, and they charge by the weight of each selection. I got potatoes, a mince and carrot dish, and a chunk of pork belly and they weren’t too bad.
As I’d had my museum fun, it was L’s turn as we headed to the Riga fashion museum, Modes Musejs, and well we hit a gem. Unbeknownst to either of us, the museum’s current exhibition was all about Vivienne Westwood, and had about 50 of her outfits, plus some shoes and other accessories. The collection spanned her entire career, from the fetish-inspired, through countless plaids, tweeds, and tartans, through to sequins, gowns, suits and bustles. Westwood was an amazing artist.
We popped into a couple of shops on the way back to the hotel, grabbing a few pressies and souvenirs. Saw some more beautiful buildings, Riga old town does have a lot of these. We then had a bit of a rest evening, with delivery gf dumplings, with pan fried random smoked pork, and watched an episode of drag race, kind of like home really, but it’s good for an occasional change of pace. The dumplings (from Zeest) were okay, not fabulous, probably as we ordered them fried and then they had the delivery, just a bit bland and chewy.
Last night in Riga, and a fairly early bus to catch tomorrow, so it’s time for packing and resting. Tomorrow’s a bus tour that ends up in Vilnius, Lithuania, the last of the Baltic states. And we’re bringing cash.