A walk with famous citizens of Riga: Vērmane Garden

The history of a place is above all about the people who shape its cultural fabric. The Vērmane Garden was founded in 1813 and has seen a lot since then. It has been visited by prominent personalities and ordinary citizens, monuments have been erected and dismantled, pavilions have been built and destroyed, trees have been planted and cut down. Even its name changed: from 1950 to 1990 the garden was officially called Kirov Park. One thing remains unchanged — the love of the citizens and the atmosphere of coziness, which the garden has preserved for more than two centuries.

The Vērmane Garden reminds me of a large communal apartment. Here is a man at a height of five meters for some reason tying a hammock to the branches of an ancient oak tree, and three people below are diligently supervising his work. Next to this company some friends decided to have dinner on the grass: to spite your hungry stomach they take out of their bags the juiciest sandwiches in the world and eat them with undisguised appetite. This picture looks so bountiful that even a seagull can’t stand it and snatches his uneaten dinner from one of the guys on the fly.

In the background you can hear sounds from the nearby street stage: no one is performing today, but the vacationers are their own musicians. Some play the guitar, some play the flute, and special originals play the wargan. You can’t take a step without bumping into someone’s creative activity. Only you wanted to sit down on a bench — and here already children have laid out sheets of paper, paints, pencils, and with zeal make sketches with you. You look at the neighboring bench, and it is occupied by children’s toys, which anyone can take away for free. In a few seconds a child approaches it, scrutinizes the assortment, but in the end runs away with nothing — he already has them. And all the walkers seem to merge in a single performance, and you involuntarily become a co-participant in the common action.

The King’s move

Among the couples in love, kids with scooters, street musicians, mothers and fathers with strollers and many other characters you can spot rare figures leaning over the seats by the bandstand. These are the chess players, who have become one of the symbols of this garden. This is where Mihails Tāls, the future eighth world chess champion, began his career in the second half of the 1940s.

Imagine the hungry post-war years, the bombed-out Riga and the meager living conditions. Young Misha’s mother gives him a few kopecks for ice cream, and he runs to lose them to the experienced players in the Vērmane Garden.

It is believed that he was introduced to chess by his father during the evacuation, when he and his family spent several years in the village of Yurla in what is now the Perm region of Russia. After the end of the war and his return to Latvia, he became even more fascinated by chess. He spent a lot of time in the Vērmane Garden, gradually honing his skills.

An artist in a coat

Now let’s travel back one decade to the 1930s. You are strolling through a garden and suddenly catch a glimpse of a brightly dressed young man. His black hat with unusually wide brim immediately catches your eye. He has a smoldering cigar in his mouth and a bright red scarf around his neck. His long coat with wide shoulders almost drags on the ground, and in his hands he holds a bamboo cane and yellow gloves. The image is completed by striped pants and shoes worn to a shine. He strolls slowly and casually with a characteristic sprawling gait.

Even nowadays, such a character can surprise many people, while almost a century ago his appearance embarrassed almost everyone. Meet Riga artist Kārlis Padegs, famous for his acutely social paintings. His works embarrassed his contemporaries more than the extraordinary appearance of the author himself. One of the most famous paintings «Madonna with a Machine Gun», painted in 1932, still draws sharp criticism from some viewers. The bloody machine gun belt hanging from the weapon in the Madonna’s hands is full of cartridges, which means that the shooting will not stop for a very long time.

For three decades, Riga mineral water has been known in many European countries and is the main «attraction» of the garden. Wilhelm pours himself one glass and sits on a bench in one of the alleys. In a few years he will study at the University of Tartu, become a great scientist and win the Nobel Prize. In the meantime, he’s enjoying a nice summer day, sipping a cool drink of water.

Collector of daines

In the early 1890s, the authoritative folklorist and writer Krišjānis Barons returns from Russia to his homeland, Latvia. From Moscow he transports to Riga the main work of his life — a cabinet of daines. It contains a card catalog of Latvian folk songs, totaling about 150,000 pieces. The researcher is eager to publish at least a part of the accumulated material so that people could get acquainted with the national folklore.

The hard work of systematizing and studying the songs required incredible effort. Walks in Riga parks helped him to distract himself from his work. Like many of his contemporaries, Krišjānis Barons liked the Vērmane Garden and often took walks there in his free time.