Europe Summer 2023

In the morning, we went on a gruesome tour of the KGB prison, which is where thousands of people were tortured and executed by the Stalin regime. Of course, we were very familiar with all the stories, but seeing the terrible conditions and cells first hand has been very difficult. Perhaps, the most heavy was the realization of the sheer scale of millions of people who perished in this terror - Riga was not unique and such terror machines were in every major city in the Soviet Union. Shockingly, the outside of the building has a completely normal beautiful facade, giving no hints at the atrocities happening behind the unassuming doors. In need of something lighter, we went on an audio tour of the Art Noveau buildings. It’s a stunning mishmash of baroque, neoclassicism and other styles that happened for a brief 20 years at the beginning of the 20th century. There are some 750 art nouveau buildings in Riga and they are all stunning!Read more