Accenture is an global consulting company, which is located in so called Latvian Silicon Valley, the former VEF.
Accenture has more than 300 employee, which makes it the largest IT Company in Riga.

Labels: american, buildings, companies, night, offices, streets, teika, vef, winter

McDonald's restaurants quickly become points of reference in any city of the world.

Labels: american, buildings, center, eclecticism, food, hostels, restaurants, stations, streets

T.G.I. Friday's is always called just Fridays, but most of the local people don't even know that it stands for Thank God It's Friday's, just because they simply don't go to this American restaurant.
Everyday regular visitors of Fridays are Riga tourists, who pretend that they don't like McDonald's and don't know about Hesburger, which is located 1 minute walking from here.

Labels: american, cafes, food, people, restaurants, vecriga

Kronbergs & Čukste is our own copyrighted Latvian Ernst & Young (Don't confuse with Ernsts un Jangs :))
By the law auditors and lawyers must be separated, so if Ernst & Young is taking financial consulting, then Kronbergs & Cukste is involved into legal counseling.

Labels: american, buildings, citadel, companies, finance, funny

Tobago Casino is located in the basement of Hotel Riga, but it is closed since 2008 already.
The reason why I write about this forgotten place is its name Tobago, an island in Caribbeans.
Not many people know that predecessor of Latvia, The Duchy of Courland, was the owner of this colonial island in 17th century and settled it.
In other words, Latvia was one of the first colonizers of Americas.

Labels: american, buildings, casinos, history, hotels, islands, kurzeme, vecriga

The second performance of Metallica in Riga was finished few hours ago, this time in Arena Riga.
I was witness of amazing performance of James Hetfield and his band.

Labels: american, arena, famous, lights, music, people, show

Just few Rigans know that word Riga stands not only for the capital of Latvia, but it is also name for some cities, towns and other places around the world.
Today it is exactly 201 year since Riga town was formed in the state of New York in United States of America. Nowadays Riga, NY is a small town with population of 6,000 people.
I hope one day I will take a plane to New York and take these pictures by myself, but for now I am sending big thanks for photos to Art and Jim from Riga, NY

Labels: american, birthdays, cities, outside latvia, riga, towns, writings

Uzbekistan Airlines is the only airline which perform transatlantic flights from Riga Airport.
The plane with the blue hood makes flights Tashkent - Riga - New York - Riga - Tashkent 3 times per week.
Basically it makes New York JFK airport just 10 hours away from Riga.
Not that far from the capital of the world, isn't? :)

Labels: airplanes, airports, american, asian, foreign, transport, winter

I have never been a big fan of blues, jazz music nor live music in general. Before I visited Bites Blues Club.
I was invited by Lynne Jordan, who were not just performing here tonight, but also brought me a souvenir magnet from Chicago :)
Her stage performance turned me into a new fan of live music, where an artist controls and interact with the public, making jokes, etc. Basically she behaves like an absolute leader and makes fun even with relatively quiet and passive crowd. So you can easy feel the energy exchange :)
The club itself has a great atmosphere, nice design, it is without high prices and with enormous collection of blues artists' photos performed here, in Bites blūza klubs.

Labels: american, center, clubs, culture, famous, music, nightlife, people

15 years ago first Riga McDonald's was officially opened. At that time it was one of the prestigious places to eat. Since then I am regular client of that fast food place. I simply enjoy these always warm and tasty burgers :)
Being teenager I used to work in McDonald's as well, luckily not for a long time. Actually, after that I couldn't eat in McDonald's several months because I just got knew how and from what food is being prepared.

Labels: american, birthdays, brivibas, first, food, lights, night, restaurants, vecriga

Malibu is one of the oldest places in Old Town, which is still open under its original initial name.
I remember, about 7-8 years ago Malibu had reputation of a nice place and I was proud of my friend who used to work as a cook there.
Nowadays it is a dive focusing on unconcerned tourists walking around on Kalku iela.
Stinking room, uncomfortable chairs, overpriced menu, dirty dishes, bad design, worse food.
I guess some local people go there, just because Malibu is one of the few places where it is allowed to smoke.

Labels: american, bars, cities, food, night, restaurants, vecriga

A famous heavy metal star Marilyn Manson has finally performed in Riga. On Sunday - such a blasphemer.
Although rumors that he got a swine flu, Marilyn was looking fine with his new album The High End of Low.

Labels: american, arena, entertainment, music, persons

Steiku Haoss (literally Steak Chaos) is one of the best places in Riga if you are looking for tasty juicy steak.
Pros: Rich menu, good service
Cons: Relatively high prices even for Old Town
This Wild Wild West restaurant is located on Livu square.

Labels: american, buildings, food, restaurants, snow, vecriga, winter

Yesterday in Latvia, just one week after the world, was the premier of the new shocking film Brüno.
The movie is from producer of Borat and they are quite similar. Bruno is Austrian gay who wants to became world class celebrity and goes to USA.
Of course it is forbidden to make any photos in cinema, but I wanted to show subtitles in two languages.
Every movie in Latvia is being subtitled in two languages: Latvian and Russian. This movie itself is also in two languages: English and German.
Unglaublich!

Labels: american, austrian, cinemas, famous, german, jewish, latvian, movies, persons, queer, russian, writings

This sign post, located at Perses iela, shows distances between Riga and world cities.
Moscow (Maskava) 841 kilometers
Brussels (Brisele) 1455 km
London (Londona) 1674 km (1040 miles)
New York (Ņujorka) 6751 km (4195 miles)

Investment and Development Agency of Latvia (LIAA) is much closer, just 10 meters, but lately more and more people leave the country for developing and investing in somewhere else.
Such ideas are visiting me quite often as well. What about you, my friends?

See also memorial distance sign to Warsaw.

Labels: american, center, cities, english, french, monuments, russian, writings

Labā Vēsts (Good news) is an evangelical non-denominational Christian ministry with around 1000 members in Latvia.
Good News Unlimited is founded more than 20 years ago in USA as a branch of Seventh-day Adventist Church.
See also Latvian Methodist Church.

Labels: american, buildings, churches, purvciems, religious

Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu or simply Deloitte is one of the big four Auditors.
It is a good sign for relatively small city Riga, when such companies has their representatives here.
Also Chevrolet centre can be seen on right side. Chevrolet is taking 28th place by popularity among car makes in Riga.

Labels: american, buildings, cars, companies, finance, maskachka, offices

Volkswagen Touareg with American flag instead of number plate.
I guess it is legal in America to not have the front license plate.

Labels: american, cars, flags, streets, vecriga

I guess that nobody in Riga think that residence of American Embassy on Raina boulevard is a nice building, which adorns city.
Despite its very center location (it is next nearest building to French Embassy) it looks like a fortified warehouse.
For openers the building has 24*7 strong security, 2 fences and the window guards.

Labels: american, cars, castles, embassies, streets, ugly, walls

Last week Riga Stock Exchange has been renamed to NASDAQ OMX Riga, therefore became more reliable part of NASDAQ.
Warm advertisement welcomed Riga all day long at Times Square in my favorite city New York.
Author of this picture is unknown.

Labels: ads, american, banks, buildings, cities, companies, outside latvia, squares, streets