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Neighborhood #15: Bieriņi

Name: Bieriņi Meaning: Latvian version of “Behrens,” the name of the German family that owned the old manor Area: 4.27 km2 (31st) 2014 Population: 9443 (22nd) 2008 Population density: 2016 people/km2 (25th) Distance from Riga Central Station by public transit: 21 minutes Public transit lines: #7, #10, #25, #55, #56 busses Places of interest: Mārupītes dabas parks, statue park, Where to eat: Picerija Ansamblis, 38 Robežu iela Date of visit: May 7th, 2017

Though maligned to the point of cliché in art and music over the past few decades, suburban sprawl is still an inescapable part of middle-class life outside of most American cities. Originally built in the 1950s on the territory of former farmland in order to give more “breathing space” to affluent young families looking to escape “blighted” cities, these endless seas of similar-looking single-family houses have become an cultural icon of the United States and are featured in countless films and TV shows.

While this kind sprawl doesn’t quite exist in Latvia in the same form, something a bit similar can be found in towns outside of Rīga and in periphery neighborhoods such as Bieriņi, the area we visited all the way back in early May. Though technically a neighborhood of Rīga, Bieriņi is almost indistinguishable to most residents from the nearby town of Mārupe.

From above it's easy to see that most of the neighborhood is a fairly large and standard grid, full mostly of detached and semi-detached houses. The main geographic feature of the neighborhood is the Mārupīte stream which roughly cuts the neighborhood in half. The northern boundaries of K. Ulmaņa gatve and Rīga-Tukums railroad and eastern boundary of the Rīga-Jelgava railroad are perfectly logical, but the eastern and southern borders are a bit more interesting. While the map above shows an identical street grid system virtually indistinguishable between the Mārupe and Rīga sides of the border, you can clearly see from the satellite image below that the houses become less dense almost immediately on the Mārupe side.

It was a bit hard to decide where to start, so we decided to try to enter the neighborhood in the “horn” at the very top where the railroads fork off between their respective destinations of Jelgava and Tukums. Although it technically isn't part of Bieriņi, we decided to take the train to Torņakalns station just north of this point and walk a few short minutes along the tracks the get there. When we got off the train, we were met by Konstantin who would be joining us again as he had in Āgenskalns. Luckily, the weather was leaps and bounds an improvement over that day a month earlier.

We tried entering via a path that you can just barely see in the above picture that led from the road to the “horn,” but as soon as we got there, it became clear that it was strictly private property and that the path was only meant for people who lived or worked there. Instead, we walked a bit along the road you can see to the left until we got to Altonavas iela and were able to cross the tracks there.

At the Altonavas iela crossing we were surprised to find some modern paintings hung on the wooden fencing. There was no information about who or where they came from, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were related to one of the art schools in the area. The tracks we crossed over continue on to Jelgava in the south of the country, and some dandelions were just popping up through the gravel.

We took a left onto Ārlavas iela, which seemed to be the main road through this very northern tip of the neighborhood. There was a wide assortment of brick and wooden houses no taller than two or three stories. While many houses in Latvia have signs warning about a “nikns suns” (ferocious dog), there was one here that warned that theirs was “nenormāls,” which can translate to either “abnormal” or “insane.” This area seemed quite calm without a massive amount of traffic, although cars did pass us by regularly.

At the corner of Robežu iela we found a small grocery store across the street from a cool multi-functional building that looked a bit like a small palace. We grabbed a few novelty ice creams from the store and found a small dog hanging out with the shopkeepers. We then continued on a bit further and came to a bridge that carried K. Ulmaņa gatve, the northwest boundary of the neighborhood. From now on, we would be in the main part of Bieriņi south of the major roadway.

From here we followed Tēriņu iela southeast, passing still mostly residential houses and a few small businesses. We took a small detour right onto Ģimnastikas iela and then left onto Ojāra Vācieša and then back onto Tēriņu iela again, following somewhat of an right triangle. This brought us by a forest that was part of the Mārupīte nature park that we would visit a bit later, where leaves were blooming everywhere. Building houses that looked like castles seems to have been all the rage here at one point in the not-so-distant past.

After a few minutes we came to the intersection with Ceres iela, which to the left of where we were is a fairly major road that goes on to cross the railroad tracks to cross through Atgāzene next to the campus of Biznesa augstskola "Turība." To the right, however, the road is much narrower and full of the small houses which led me to characterize the neighborhood as Rīga's version of suburban sprawl earlier in the article. We followed Ceres iela for a kilometer or so, passing by houses in mostly very good condition.

Although we had already seen a few of these “Man Te Patīk (I like it here) Bieriņi” stickers in some other places during out walk so far, this mailbox was the best example since there were so many of them in different colors. The sticker that says “Kaimiņš kaimiņu sargā” means that “neighbors protect neighbors,” and “droša apkaime” means “safe neighborhood.” There were also two stickers that seem to have been given to participants in the neighborhood's yearly clean-up event that happens throughout the county in spring. This is the kind of suburban patriotism that can be found all throughout America but is more rare in Latvia, especially a neighborhood of Rīga. According to a colleague who has lived in the neighborhood her entire life, this sense of camaraderie really does exist here, and neighbors come together for different events throughout the year such as flea markets, a race down the Mārupīte river, and the clean-up day. She told me that people will sometimes say “es braucu uz Rīgu” (I'm going to Riga) when they need to do shopping in the center, as if it was a faraway place and not the city they were currently in. She also said that, as the stickers suggested, that neighbors really do keep an eye on each other. Although she knew some people who have moved in more recently, many of her neighbors had too lived in the neighborhood their entire lives and knew each other quite well.

We continued down Ceres iela, passing by what we later found out was a massive buddhism and yoga training complex called the “Dipika Yoga School.” The grounds of the facility were absolute gorgeous, with a few small canals and buildings in a vague east asian style. You can find out more about the school here. When we got to Dauguļu iela we took a right and headed north until we came to the Mārupīte river. We didn't go any further north, but we could clearly see one of the towers of Panorama Plaza in Pleskodale off in the distance.

So far, since crossing the train tracks, our path had gone like this:

Along the Mārupīte is a nature trail that extends all the way from the town of Mārupe to the neighborhood of Torņakalns. According to Mārupe's town website, the entire path (meant mostly for cyclists) is 14.2 km long, although a significant portion of this distance is backtracking as can be seen on the map below:

The portion that we walked was very well-maintained and we were unsurprisingly passed by quite a few bikers on this beautiful spring day. The path was mostly either paved with asphalt or well-kept dirt.

According to one sign, the track would be closed on Thursdays from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM due to a series of bike races. It said that more information could be found at ritenvasara.lv, although most of the information seems to be gone at this point.

When we got to the junction with Codes iela we decided to leave the path for a while and explore the neighborhood's famous “Akmensdārzs” (stone garden). On Ceres iela just across from the garden was a house that had quite a collection of vintage trucks and farming equipment. My colleague who has lived here her entire life told me that this kind of countryside scene is not uncommon here, with some of here neighbors keeping chickens in their backyard even to this day and other neighbors having goats in the backyard in the past.

In the 1970s, sculptor Indulis Ranka got permission from the Soviet government to set up both a stone sculpture exhibition park as well as a workshop to help familiarize people with stone processing. This project ended in the 90s when people began to reclaim the land that had been taken away by the soviet government, but the statues still remain and Indulis Ranka continued working here until his death just a few months ago in April. There is currently a community effort to try to reach out to the different artists who made the statues here to be able to create informational plaques that inform visitors who made each statue and what they meant, but many of them are still a mystery as of now.

We continued along the beautiful Mārupīte trail, coming across a wooden fence with some interesting graffiti and then crossed the Mārupīte via a fairly new-looking metal bridge that was inscribed with lyrics from various mid-2000s alternative rock songs. Here was a portion of the trail that no longer went along the river, so we had to cross through a section of more residential houses to get to the next section of the trail.

Our route along the trail, through the statue park, and to the final section of the nature path looked a bit like this:

The final section of the nature path brought us past a very modern housing unit, under the bridge of Ulmaņa gatve, and the grounds of Rīgas angļu ģimnāzija, a high school that was founded in 1919 and since the early 90s has offered an intensive English language program. It wasn't long before we came to the end of Bieriņi's territory at the train tracks to Tukums and the border of Āgenskalns. On the other side of the tracks was one of the only areas of Āgenskalns that we hadn't explored during our visit there. As we got there, a freight train was just passing by and heading towards the city center.

After backtracking a brief distance to Ulmaņa gatve, we had a decision to make: continue on to explore the northwest third of the neighborhood that bordered Pleskodale, or get some food and call it a day. In the end we doubted that we were going to find much different from what we had already seen, so we elected to walk along Ulmaņa gatve back towards Tēriņu iela and check out a pizzeria called “Ansamblis” that we had passed by earlier. This ended up being a fantastic decision, since at Ansamblis we found by far the tastiest pizza I have yet found in Rīga. Everything was perfect: the dough was just thick enough and not undercooked or crunchy, and the sauce they used wasn't ketchup in disguise as is the overly sweet “tomato sauce” that's used in many other pizza places throughout the city. The pizzeria also seems to be a supporter of local music, with concerts happening inside from time to time and various CDs and merchandise for sale. There's not much I can really say other than if you live in Rīga, like pizza, and aren't too lazy to leave the center of town, you absolutely need to come check this place out. None of us tried the burgers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were as delicious as well.

And... that was it for us for the day. There was of course more that we hadn't seen, but it was getting a bit late and all of us were tired. We decided to exit the neighborhood across the tracks and walk to Āgenskalns where there were far more public transit options than there were here.

It's easy to understand why residents of Bieriņi seem to be so patriotic about their part of the city away from the city. It's worth taking the train or bus ride out here to check out the pizza at Ansamblis alone, but it'd be well worth your time to walk or bike along the path to Mārupe as well and to stop off at the stone garden too.

A few random observations:

Although we didn't know this all the way back in May, 2017 would turn out to be the coldest Latvian summer of the 21st century so far. We finally had a few days of weather that reached 30° or so by the end of the summer, but by now summer weather is already a distant memory.

I found out later that the Dominican Sisters of Bethany, a Catholic Order that originates in France, operates a convent in the part of Bieriņi that we didn't visit. The order was founded in the 1860s, and they've been working in Latvia since 1995.

According to my acquaintance who has been living in the neighborhood for her entire life, a number of well-known Latvian authors, artists, and playwrights have lived in the neighborhood throughout its history.

We didn't know it at the time (and unfortunately therefore didn't take any photographs), but we passed by the original manor building as we walked along the river. It is a brown wooden house, and has been restored by the original owners in last decade or so. I found a picture here, taken from ambermarks.com:

And that's it for now. Since May, we have also visited Bišumuiža and Katlakalns, which I will try to write about as soon as possible. Until next time, try to enjoy the last few days of relatively warm weather before the dark times set in.

Nākamā Pietura: Bišumuiža!

#bierini #riga #latvia #Latvija #latvian #Latvian culture #latvian art #latvian history #Rīga #marupe #mārupe #urban exploration #urbanexploration #Латвия #Pārdaugava #Рига

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