Air Baltic has direct flights from Lisbon and soon from Porto to Riga, the capital of Latvia. And 2023 is the best year to land in the Baltics.
Riga was, at the dawn of World War I, the third largest city in the Russian Empire. Germans, Poles and Swedes preceded the Russians in dominating this strategic trading post on the Baltic.
In 1918, it became the capital of the new independent country and passed to the Soviet yoke in 1940 to, in 1941, return to the Germans, this time Nazis, who made it the capital of the Reichskommissariat Ostland, a territory that included Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and part of Belarus.
On the Soviet return, it was populated by Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians.
It’s good to see that Riga may have many answers for the current situation in Ukraine. Even because 40% of its population remains Russian.
And visiting it to understand it is now possible by boarding a direct flight from Lisbon and, starting in May, from Porto, on the national airline Air Baltic.
In addition to a complex history, the capital of Latvia is home to a historic center classified by UNESCO and the Mezaparks Great Bandstand, the arena that every five years welcomes tens of thousands of choristers in a festival also consecrated by the United Nations agency as Intangible Heritage of Humanity along with traditions from neighboring Lithuania and Estonia.
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