Riga

Some good pieces of advice by way of introduction

When arriving in Riga from Moscow you should turn your watch one hour back, while arriving from Berlin or Stockholm, one hour forward; but if you come from Helsinki, you do not have to change the time.

The average temperature in January in Riga is -5°C (23F), but the average temperature in July is +17°C (64F).

In the sense of climate our life is monotonuous and it offers no surprises. Your skin will not come off because of tan in Riga and you cannot expect bigger floods than in 1709. Only once could you go in horse-drawn sledges to thei Island of Gottland to trande and that was during the Swedish times thanks to the big frost.

Our climate is unstable but always bearable. An umbrella is useful, beginning from March up to November and so is a jumper if you like going by yacht, motorboat or passenger ship.

in Latvia cars drive on the right. We use the metric system, so one inch is 2.54 centimetres, one foot is 30.48 centimetres, one yard is 0.9144 metres and a mile 1.6093 km. In the shops, goods are weighed in kg + grammes, the English pound is 454 grammes, the Russian pound 409 and the ounce is 28.35 grammes.