Quote Originally Posted by klopp View Post
you meant the Riga central market right?

thanks for the tips


p.s. Apart from the vendors did you always try to speak to them in Russian and then if necessary switch to English? Did they ever frown at you because you started a conversation in Russian?
Nope, nobody switched to English. They can hear I have a foreign accent so whatever ideas they have about it doesn't apply to me. I just tried to communicate with people. As far as I was concerned I could have spoken English but in general they are much better at Russian. For my main stay there, I was mainly just in Latvia to get a suntan on the beach, mull over a few things and check out Riga... I didn't care massively what language I spoke there, but it ended up being Russian.

Twice I had a problem: Once I hadn't bought a ticket for the tram. The conductor had a right go at me and I think she believed I was faked poor Russian and no Latvian. She wouldn't have a second of it and told me off in both languages. I ended up just paying the penalty fee.

The other time, I went into the optician. When the optician (a young woman) noticed that I was struggling in Russian, she switched to English and was totally delighted for the opportunity to practice.

I think they reserve any negative feelings they have about the Russian language for actual Russians.
Nobody expressed any views or comments on my language skills.
Twice I witnessed some very insensitive and rude behavoiur towards native Russian speakers.

It's obvious that the majority (60%) take out their historical grievances against Russia on the Russian speaking part of the population without reflecting on how unfair and illogical that is.

The other thing is that most people speak quite poor English and it's just not an option for them to switch to English. Whereas most people speak Russian to a very good standard. I think everyone above 30 is at near native level. I spoke to some teenage boys who spoke better Russian than English, but I their vocabulary in Russian was not much better than mine.

Be aware that occasionally people will try and charge you higher prices when they realise you are from Western Europe. Either check the price beforehand do a bit of research, or accept that you might end up paying double for un-marked items. This didn't happen to me in Ukraine or Belarus, that I noticed, but it happened a few times in Latvia and it took a while before I clued up to it.

The other thing that surprised me as I was spending a month and a bit in Latvia was how much poverty there is. I had read a lot about the "Latvian miracle" and sure, I saw some expensive sports cars in Riga. But the rest of the people were definitely quite poor (comparatively). The countryside was in worse shape than for example Belarus. Lots of regular perfectly competent people seemed to be out of work. You'll see "EU sponsored project" signs just about everywhere. There are lots of dilapidated buildings, and there are Russian speaking people around who live in old army housing in absolutely squalid conditions. There is a Stockmann department store in Riga that sells the regular European brands of clothes and electronics. Most people shopping there were Scandinavians, Germans and Russians from Russia. Regular people get their clothes from low price outlets and the market.

Also: Be a bit decent and allow nice people who ask for it to practice English with you. It may be their only opportunity.
Or give it a go for five minutes and then switch over.