That Bathroom is Just Bad News in a Plain-Paper Wrapper

When someone goes out of their way to help you, you should in turn try to accept their effort gracefully. Well, sometimes cultural standards do come into play. I really try to keep an open mind, but housing standards are different in Latvīja than they are at home. They are even different from those in Prague. Czech has panelaky too, same as Latvīja. Panelaky are the Russian style modular apartment buildings. Panelaky or panel buildings are constructed in sections stacked one on top of another. They are not known for their efficient or luxurious construction and are usually seen as a bad thing. Russian housing standards were exacting and dense, but never would they be accused of being pretty or good. On the opening day, a panelak would be said to be high-density, low cost and good for the people. Sadly, the people living there have other more colorful phrases for them. In Rīga, I have had the opportunity to live in one of these apartments on the outskirts of town, Kengarags to be specific. Every other person I have met in Rīga has a differing opinion than that of my friend who made the arrangements for me. Kengarags is a rough neighborhood and is seen as a place to be avoided in general. The nice thing about housing on Visku Iela, was a T-Market and relatively easy if lengthy “micro-autobus” trips to the Centrs. Use van, microavtobus, Route 236 to go to Kengarags to Milda. My first opinion of the flat at Kengarags was not really so high. In fact, my first opinion was not positive at all, but I really had no other option due to the high cost of hotels in Rīga. It had a kitchen and a working refrigerator, and I found that bringing my laptop was the only way to overcome the boredom of life without a tv or a radio. I lived there for a week and for a few weekends. It is a small flat, I am told it is the size for a whole family. There is one room, a kitchen and a bathroom. My mom would panic if she had to use that bathroom. I did not want to offend Natasha who thought it was a normal apartment. The main room is decorated in a typical family way with several closet cabinets, glass-faced cabinets filled with antique flatware and book shelves lined with well thumbed Russian literature. There was a table; a couch and what appeared to be clean bed linens for the couch. The place was clean but had not been cleaned in quite a while. Judging from the blackness of my feet after walking around on the floor for a few minutes it had not been mopped or vacuumed since the change of government. For the 15Ls ($28) per night price it was not so bad. It was just below a standard that I would keep my own house in. So there is some level of disappointment when I found out that I was paying for a “normal flat” as claimed by Natasha. A simple kitchen, I did not really expect the latest in Viking appliances and a walk-in freezer. The freezer worked and thanks to Natasha I knew where the gas shut-off was. Just on general principle I would never touched the large red handle on the wall. For those of you, who are considering renting personal flats as hotel alternatives, do not forget something to light the stove with. That is all I can say for the kitchen. I found nothing exciting or dangerous there. The bathroom on the other hand is a different story. All of the stories about Russian plumbing are true. The first thing that I do not understand is the “crap ledge” in the toilets. In European and American toilets the toilets essentially are a pit with a jet to push the materials down into the sewer. Russian ingenuity has developed a system that just does not seem to work without some help. Russian toilets suffer from a pretty disgusting design flaw They have a ledge onto which you excrete your waste. When you flush the jet is supposed to push the material off the ledge into the trap and then out to where ever dead goldfish go. This may not be an obvious mistake but a single use will demonstrate the complete failure of this design. American waste is just far stiffer stuff than the Russian “design-to” shit. I have stayed in this flat for a few weeks now and I can say that I have always had to help the material down into the trap because the jet is not strong enough. Yuck. Enough about that, but maybe you should talk to your wife when you think about replacing your toilet seat with an unfinished piece of plywood. The bathtub was just not my choice for bathroom furniture, but there is no way to keep a tub clean with that much silt and iron in the pipes. A normal Latvījan apartment is something below the Czech standard. I will not berate anyone for their effort to help me, but I will say that there must be something better than this. I can not believe that after that many years that the situation was just so bad that you could not clean the place or make basic replacements. It is a sad thing to say when the standard is so far below any reasonable hygienic standard. It was just yucky. It was also so far out of town that it was difficult and expensive to get to and from on a regular basis. I think paying twice the price for a single room on Caku Iela is a better situation for me. Especially, when the people I go to visit still do not invite me to stay with them. It is probably another one of those cultural things that can not be understood or explained.