Today I walked all over downtown Riga again photographing memorials. I re-shot some of the sites from yesterday under better light conditions. I also did a few memorials on the Pardaugava side of the river, including the memorial to the victims of communism at the Tornakalna station (Thorensberg was the old German name). It has a railroad car showing how the people were deported in 1941.

I went into a computer store today to buy a flash memory stick. I noticed two things. My impression from Riga in 1995 especially was that all the young men who were seen to be working had security jobs. There was a guard of some kind in every store just standing around while the women, who were not guards, were doing the real work. In this computer store, there were men and women working - and no security. The young men were stocking shelves and serving customers.

The other thing I noticed was how I had to buy the flash stick. I pointed to what I wanted behind the glass. The guy filled out a little form for me. I took that to the cash register and paid. Then I took the receipt back to the guy who had, in the meantime, gotten the stick out from behind the glass. He checked my receipt and then gave me the stick. I told the woman at the cash register that the system reminded me of the Brezhnev years. Even though she was probably about five to ten years too young to remember that time well, she knew what I meant. Back in the Soviet Union, you had to wait in line to see what they still had in stock and decide what you want. Then you went to the cash register, waited in line again, and paid. Then you waited in line again to turn in the receipt for the goods. The only differences today were that there were no lines (there was more personnel in the store than customers) and there was no danger of the desired product being sold out by the time I showed up with my receipt, forcing me to pick new products for the same price or wait in line again to get my money back.

I went into the Riga Maritime and City Museum and talked to one of the guides there. It was like striking gold. She had all kinds of ideas for my research to keep me busy the next several days. I will go back to there to talk to a colleague of hers on Monday or Tuesday. That colleague has catalogued a lot of what I will be looking for. Also, I will also go to the monument inspectorate where I have been told to expect all kinds of records in their archive. That, in addition to the sources I found during my short visit to the library today, have made me quite confident that I will find more than enough material for my work.

At the Occupation Museum I also struck gold. They are, by pure chance, having an exhibition now about memorials to the victims of communism in Latvia. The exhibition showed the exact location of all such memorials in Latvia. I photographed all the lists for Riga and environs. It is unbelieveable how dense the memorial landscape here is.

In several conversations I was quite pleased with how well I am doing with the Latvian language.