The Last Bend and Lienas Iela

On 9 October, 1944, my mother fled Riga by train with her parents and younger brother. She was seventeen years old and on the journey to the port of Liepāja, which took them three days, met a young man who gave her a book called Pēdējais Pagrieziens, which translates as The Last Bend or The Last Turn. My mother can’t remember the name of the young man, but they became fond of each other during their few days on the train together and corresponded for a while after parting in either Liepāja or Gdansk (how this was possible during the war I have no idea!). The book given to my mother was a romantic novel about racing car drivers and had been translated into Latvian, presumably from English. She enjoyed it very much and thinks it was written by Jack London, the famous author of White Fang. She also remembers that the young man who gave it to her carried with him a large sack which was full of books. Her family had one suitcase and a box of food with them, but this unknown young man was fleeing the country with a small library.

I am determined to try and find The Last Bend here in Riga. While the book itself may not be of any great literary merit, the title strikes me as being uncannily symbolic. I go to the National Library of Latvia in Elizabeth Street, where I spent ten days last year installing an artwork called SPOGULIS (mirror) on the ground floor windows. I register, am given a library card and then I see the Librarian. I ask about The Last Bend and explain the story of why I am trying to find it. The Librarian is incredibly helpful - she searches the online catalogue, gives me the card catalogue with all the Jack London entries and searches a range of online bibliographies. She tries various combinations of the title – perhaps my mother has remembered it incorrectly? Of course, this is a possibility and I also begin to suspect that she may have got the author wrong and that the book is not written by Jack London.

The Librarian takes my email address and phone number and sends me to the 5th floor to see another Librarian who may be able to help. I'm given a pass and make my way up the dark stairs. The lino is ancient and brown and the walls are painted to resemble wallpaper in brown tones with dark floral borders. There are old lifts with metal grills on every floor, corridors lined with closed doors or card catalogues, and on one level, beautiful stained glass windows. Earlier this year, the date was set for the opening of the brand new National Library of Latvia, called Gaismu Pils, The Castle of Light, which is scheduled to open on Latvian Independence Day on 18 November 2012. The building will be white and is shaped like a triangle pointing towards the heavens.

I reach the fifth floor and really have no idea where to go – I don’t understand the signs on the doors and how they correlate to the slip of paper I’ve been given - but I ask someone and find the right Librarian, who again is extremely helpful. She searches various hard copy bibliographies but is unable to find The Last Bend. She takes my details and says she will email me. I really don’t hold out much hope for finding the book.

I meet Armīns Ozoliņš at Osiris Café - he's the artist who helped me install SPOGULIS last year - and we walk to Krāsotāja (Painter) Street to a digital graphics company called Magnum TI who may be able to print some large scale images for me. About 200 metres before we get to Magnum, I notice a tree-lined street that goes off to the right with some rather dilapidated wooden buildings on the corner. This is nothing unusual in Riga – as you move further away from the centre of the city, the buildings tend to be less renovated and are more reminiscent of Soviet times. For some reason I feel oddly drawn to the view down this particular street and make a mental note that I should take a photograph next time I go by.

The Magnum company don’t have the particular fabric I wanted in stock and so I decide to get one image only, rather than three, printed on a different quality fabric as an experiment. I’m worried that the printing will be too glossy but I’m also keen to see one of the images at full scale. We do a deal and then Armīns takes me to a nearby Antique Bookstore where I might be able to find The Last Bend. We have to walk past that street I was drawn to earlier and for some reason I am once again struck by the buildings and the view.

The Antique Bookshop has a complete set of Jack London novels and short stories published in 1938, but The Last Bend is not amongst them. Either my mother has the title wrong or the author. I am almost tempted to buy the entire set of books just in case, but decide to wait for news from the library instead. I do buy about 10 journals from the 1920s, 30s and 40s and a novel about Emilija Benjamins, who ran the Estate my mother lived on near Kandava in the 1930s.

When I get back to the flat, there is an email from the library – they have found The Last Bend! I am stunned because I really didn’t think they would be able to trace it. The title is correct but the author is not Jack London – it’s H Richter - and it was published in 1944.

The next day I go to the library to see the book. I have to go to the third floor this time where I hand in a slip of paper with the book’s call number. It will take about half an hour to retrieve and I patiently wait in a reading room on the 5th floor. When I return the book has arrived. It’s a paperback with a murky dark cover and I can immediately see that it’s the right book because it has a picture of a racing car zooming down a tree-lined road and a silhouette of enthusiastic spectators on the cover. I feel overcome with emotion as I handle the book and turn its pages. The paper is thickish and brown from the acidic content. I get to the title page and it offers an extraordinary surprise – the book was translated from the German by M Berzins. My mother’s maiden name is Mirzda Berzins! I wonder whether this may be the reason the young man in the train gave this particular book to my mother.

I start to read a little of the book but I’m too overcome by its very existence to be able to concentrate on the Latvian. I turn the pages and find that it won’t let me get beyond a certain point because all of the pages have not been cut – the content of most of the book is thus inaccessible. I am reminded of my own art work and how so many of my projects present the viewer with book pages, documents or other objects that promise information and meaning but deny access to that information and meaning.

I take lots of photos of the book and then head for Magnum to pick up my print. I pass by that strangely alluring street again, and this time take a quick photo. At Magnum my print has turned out well and I’m really happy with the scale, even though I am not completely convinced by the surface of the fabric. On my way home I stop by that street again and take a couple more shots, but the shadows are very intense and so the pictures are not very successful. Then I look at the name of the street – it’s Lienas Iela. This is the street where my father grew up! I’m completely taken aback, overcome by a feeling that the street has been calling me to towards itself. I walk down, looking for number 8, and there it is, just a short way down on the right. It’s a big rendered apartment building with a large gate on the left leading into an internal courtyard. It looks as though it has not been touched since the 1940s. I take photos and feel tears welling in my eyes. My father’s family lived in apartment 14 and this is also where my cousin Mara grew up.

I’m not sure what to do. I walk back to Krasotaja Street and there is a small café directly opposite Lienas Street called Lienas Café. It’s very basic, with fake green onyx tables and a lone customer - a rather rough looking Russian worker - busily concentrating on a bowl of soup. I don’t feel I belong here, but I need to sit down and get over the shock of Lienas Street. The owner of the café emerges from the back room – he looks like an extremely weathered version of Michael Edwards, the directory of Contemporary Art Services Tasmania - and I order a Frikadelu (meatball and vegetable) soup with rye bread. It’s home-made and delicious and I enjoy every mouthful.

On the way home I stop at three Antique Book stores and ask for a copy of The Last Bend, but no-one has it.

Russian Contemporary Art, the Arsenals Film Festival and Riga Balsam

On Friday 19th September I attend the opening of ART-Index, an exhibition of Russian Contemporary Art in Arsenals, the gallery with the amazingly steep and scary staircase I visited in my first week in Riga. The exhibition is part of a unique season of events celebrating Russian culture in Latvia. The place is packed and buzzing. After the speeches a very groovy band called Beat Retro Scratch start playing a fabulous mix of retro jazz, folk and contemporary music in the foyer.

In the main gallery a group of ballerinas wearing classical tutus are performing as part of one of the art works. It’s very crowded and I push my way through to see the rest of the art – sculpture, painting, photography, video – there’s a lot of work and my first impression is that it’s all very exciting. There’s a Russian aesthetic present here that I can’t quite define – it’s dramatic, strong, and confident. I’m taken by the ballerinas, a series of rather Dadaist reconstructions of military objects, a big pile of dirt that sits in the centre of one of the gallery spaces, and a bookshelf filled with loaves of rye bread. Some of the videos are also quite compelling. I join the crowds around two large cardboard boxes and peer into their open lids. Inside one is a projection of a miniature sleeping Lenin – but his sleep is is troubled and he tosses and turns in his formal black suit. Inside the other box is a projection of three people in a room – a naked woman on a bed, a man on a toilet and a man at eating at a table. The two men rotate their way clockwise around the room - eating, having sex with the woman and shitting - a comic little scene about the merry-go-round of life. I’m also drawn to a video of close-ups of raw eggs and spaghetti accompanied by Tchaikovsky; a series of large scale photographs of sausages, rye bread and cheese that have been arranged to mimic Russian Constructivist paintings, and a group of mysterious monochromatic landscapes.

As I’m taking photos of the landscapes, I hear someone call out my name and it’s Jegor Jerohomovičs, the journalist who interviewed me last year for an article in Riga’s main newspaper, Diena. Jegor speaks perfect English, Latvian and Russian and we chat for a while in Latvian, both agreeing it’s a great show and that we should keep in touch while I’m here. Then I watch the band for a little longer and meet their manager, Zoja. The band don’t have any CDs out yet, but there is more information about them on My Space.

Later I go to the K Suns Cinema to see a Belgian movie at the Arsenals International Film Festival. The movie has English subtitles but most of the people are wearing headphones through which they hear a Latvian translation. The next day Anda Klavina and I see another film, My Winnipeg, a fantastic black and white movie by Canadian director Guy Maddin, in which he recalls his childhood growing up in Winnipeg. Maddin employs actors to play his various family members and then merges his recreated memories with documentary footage of his hometown. The result is a humorous but deeply moving narrative of Maddin’s early life.

* * *

I am sick with some sort of virus for about a week. Anda suggests I take Riga Black Balzam, a mixture of secret herbs, roots, oils, berries and pure vodka (45% proof) that was developed in the mid 1700s and was traditionally sold in pharmacies. It’s black and very potent, both bitter and sweet in taste, and the day after I take my first dose, I magically feel much better. I take another dose the next day and continue to improve. The drink has won various international awards and when Catherine the Great of Russia visited Riga, she was apparently cured of illness after taking Riga Balzam.

Kandava Revisited

My return visit to Kandava to visit the Benjamin Estate is successful. I catch the 8.10am bus from Riga central bus station (it has a fantastically decorated cabin) and arrive in Kandava at about 10.30. It’s drizzling and cold again, but this time I’ve come prepared, wearing two coats – a lightweight parka underneath a longer trench coat – so I’m quite warm. I have a couple of hours to kill before catching the bus to the Estate at Valdeki, so I go to the market and buy gloves, say hello to Ilze at the Tourist Bureau, and then wander up the hill to the Lutheran Church, in that hope that it will be open this time. I’m delighted to see a group of ladies chatting in the entrance. I buy a candle and ask if it’s ok to take photos. It is a beautiful little church, with a large oil painting of the Madonna as the altarpiece and fantastic wooden Baroque carvings. One of the ladies (pictured) asks me to sign the visitors’ book and tells me that they have a wonderful minister who is loved by the community and that people from all over the world have visited the church and admired the carvings.

The bus to Valdeki is smaller and less modern that the one that took me to Kandava and drops me off about half a kilometre from the entrance to the Estate. I feel excited and a bit nervous too – afterall, I’m in the middle of the countryside, there’s hardly a house in sight and I have no car.

I walk another half a kilometre down a long curved tree-lined road. I see some farm buildings in the distance to the right and catch glimpses of the Benjamin’s yellow house ahead, hidden amongst large trees. The grounds are lush and green and well kept. There are signs that say private property and a busload of people is just about to leave the parking area. I proceed on to the house. An old lady wearing a scarf and pushing a small cart walks by and I say hello. I wander around the outside of the main house, taking photos and looking for Inta, the housekeeper, who is supposed to show me around. I recognise the front and the back of the house from the photos I saw in the Kandava Museum. In the front of the house there is a large decorative pond and beyond that, behind a fence, an ugly Soviet style building. At the back of the house is a paved garden area and beyond that, to the right, a series of buildings that I suspect are the stables. Perhaps my mother lived close by here?

There is no sign of Inta and I feel a little overwhelmed about being here, where my mother ran about and played as a young child. I wonder if she was allowed to go into the big house. (Later, when I phone her, she tells me that yes, they went into the house every day to eat lunch in the big kitchens.) I keep taking photos and then go up the grand stairs at the back of the house. The door opens and Inta comes out and greets me. Inside, the house has been lovingly restored with as many items as possible from the past – Antons Benjamin’s desk, elaborate carved sideboards, and some original chandeliers that somehow survived Soviet times. The walls are lined with large scale photographs, a mix of images that show the Benjamin family when they lived here in the 1930s, and more recent photographs by Peteris Benjamins, a descendant of the family who is now part owner of this property. Antons Benjamins died in 1939, so he missed the War, but his wife, Emilija, was sent to Siberia on 14 June 1941 and died a few months later of dysentery on 23 September in Soļikamska labour camp.

Inta points out that during the Soviet era the house was a government building was so neglected that even the floors had to be replaced. After the tour of the house, Inta says I can wander around the grounds as I please. I ask if there is a taxi or car that can take me back to Kandava afterwards, but the answer is no. There is a bus, but it doesn’t come for another three hours. I’m a little worried about getting back to Kandava – even though I am very happy to be here, there is probably not more than half an hour of exploration ahead.

I take to the grounds. It is quiet here, the gravel crunches underfoot. I take photos of all the building I come across. I think the long grey building with a series of wooden doors might be the stables where my grandfather worked, looking after the horses. Antons Benjamins’ favourite horse was a black horse named Kangars, and whenever Benjamins returned from trips outside Kandava, my grandfather would meet him at the station with a carriage drawn by Kangars. The Estate's first horse was named Otilija and was a golden colour. My mother loved the stables and the dairy and remembers that the names of every horse and every cow were inscribed above their individual stalls.

I find the hot houses where my grandmother had worked, preparing seedlings, and where my mother loved to play boats with the seedling boxes. The hothouses are now in a terrible state, the glass broken and missing and weeds growing metres high inside. Inta told me that many of the hothouses had already been pulled down because they are too difficult to restore, but there were plans to renovate one or two for the sake of posterity.

As I wander the grounds, I keep taking photos, driven by an underlying anxiety – will I manage to take one that my mother will recognise? Perhaps the long white building with windows on the second floor, is where my mother lived? I wish she were here with me right now. Every now and then I catch sight of the old lady with the scarf and cart somewhere in the distance and I wonder if she is actually real - she almost seems like an apparition from the past. I walk to the dam at the back of the property. It’s surrounded by old trees and shrubs, with a small round brick building to the right. It’s very beautiful here, densely green, and I suddenly find myself crying. When I talk to my mother on the phone later, she asks me whether the dam is still there.

Not far from the dam is a building that obviously was not part of the original Estate. I’m surprised to find it’s a shop, and I assume it’s for the people who live here, in the various surrounding buildings which Inta told me are all rented out. Back near the main house I see a man in the garden. As I approach I smile and say hello but he reacts aggressively and barks something at me that sounds like, ‘Come here.’ I move away quickly.

I take some final photos and decide to walk the six kilometres back to Kandava. I’m a bit worried about how my feet will cope, because they have still not fully recovered from surgery earlier this year, but it seems a better option than staying here for another two and a half hours. I return to the main road and begin walking. It’s a long road ahead, lined with thick forest on either side, only an occasional car passing by, and not a house in sight anywhere. It all feels very David Lynchish and I take out my umbrella as weapon. I try not to think about the possibility of being dragged into the woods by a stranger… shoulders back, head high, confident stride. I contemplate hitching a ride, but that seems even more risky than walking.

It takes me an hour to get back to Kandava and I feel a tremendous sense of achievement when I get there - my feet hurt, but I’ve made it. I visit Ilze in the Tourist Bureau and she scolds me for not phoning her to ask for a lift.

Mezaparks, a Convent and the Hill of Crosses

Mezaparks is a huge national parkland north of Riga that was established in 1901 to celebrate the city’s 700th anniversary. Today it has bike tracks, picnic areas, swimming on the banks of the Kisezers lake, children’s playgrounds, an outdoor theatre and a giant stadium where the Latvian Song and Dance Festival, Dziesmu Svetki, is held. I catch tram 11 out there, on my way to visit Ingmars Kulnieks, an old friend from Melbourne who dated two of my sisters in the late 1970s and early 80s. He was a law student back then and drove a bright yellow Karmen Ghia sports car. Ingmars moved to Riga in the mid 1990s after falling in love with a Latvian girl, Ieva, a paediatric opthalmologist. They now have three children - Kate, Karlis and Kriss. Ingmars practiced law for a short while, but disillusioned with the legal system in Latvia, began a wine importing business. We haven’t seen each other since about 1980.


Ingmars greets me from a window of his top floor apartment of a house in the suburb of Mezaparks. The property is surrounded by giant pine trees, as are most of the houses in the area. We talk non-stop while Ingmars makes lunch and after eating go for a walk with the children. The area of Mezaparks is beautiful – most of the houses are huge, with fabulous gardens and high fences, but there are also more modest homes. Ingmars points out the owners of some of the houses – the Latvian Prime Minister has a place just a few doors down, the mother of the Latvian Olympic weightlifting champion lives around the corner, the German Ambassador a few streets away. Almost every house is guarded by a giant dog – I have never seen or heard so many dogs barking so loudly! In the evening I meet Ieva, who has been at the Arsenals International Film Festival. We drink coffee and talk and then I take a cab back to my apartment.

The next day Anda Klavina, the et+t residency project officer, takes me to visit her mother and grandmother who live in a small village, Valgunde, about 10 km from the city of Jelgava. Jelgava was almost completely destroyed in WWII and, with the exception of a huge palace, was rebuilt with Soviet style buildings. Anda’s family home has a big garden of flowers, vegetables and fruit trees and we eat lunch outside – broad beans, fried chunks of bacon, tomato salad and mushrooms, all washed down with kefirs, a type of buttermilk. Anda’s mother and grandmother ask me questions about Australia and I ask them questions about life in Latvia. Anda’s mother tells me that under Soviet rule her life was better - at least then she had a regular job and didn't have to worry about an income.

Later in the afternoon we walk to the nearby Russian Orthodox Convent, a branch of Riga St Trinity Sergij that has 65 nuns and somehow managed to survive during communist rule. It’s almost directly across the road from the house, but deep in the forest. We all put skirts over our trousers and take scarves to wear on our heads so we can attend the 5pm church service.



The walk into the forest is magical. The air is fresh and spicy and a deep silence descends over us as we move through the trees. We don’t go straight to the monastery, but first visit a small outdoor chapel in a clearing in the forest. There are paintings of angels and the Madonna, vases of flowers and a circle of simple wooden benches. We sit for a while and I stare up at the sky, which seems so very high above the trees. As we head towards the monastery, the church bells start ringing – the tone is light and gentle, completely different from the heavy sound of cathedral bells I am accustomed to. The grounds of the monastery house a number of beautifully kept buildings and a large cemetery that dates back to the 1800s, when the convent was first established. Anda’s grandmother lived here for about 3 years when she was a child after WWII. I photograph her in front of the building that was her home. We all put our scarves on and enter the small, dark green timber chapel.

Inside it is dark, a little cramped and somewhat confusing. The walls are covered with icons that gleam with gold, groups of parishioners stand here and there, a priest to the left of the altar calls out repetitive prayers, and several nuns wearing unusual habits with peaked headpieces walk back and forth through the space. I am not sure what to do. Anda’s grandmother gives me a candle and I squeeze past a group of people into a small area on the right where there is a beautiful painting of a Madonna. I light the candle here and then squeeze past again. The priest starts repeating the same word over and over again and the parishioners make the sign of the cross at regular intervals. We stay a few minutes longer and then leave.

The next day I continue the religious theme and visit the Hill of Crosses in Lithuania, a trip I book through the Baltic Tourism Bureau. I am picked up outside my apartment by Austris, the Bureau’s driver. He is 20 years old but very worldly wise. I am his only passenger for the trip today and we head off in the silver grey van. I sit up front and we speak English all the way. Austris drives fast, overtaking everything in sight and constantly watching out for the cops and talking on his mobile. ‘Don’t worry’, he says, ‘I have my licence now one month. I am careful driver. I don’t take risk.’ I am not so sure about this and for the first 10kms I fell very nervous, but after that, quite inexplicably, I feel oddly safe in Austris’s hands, even when he tells me about the two major car accidents he had as a rally driver at the ages of 15 and 16 (apparently you don’t have to have a licence to drive rally cars). In one of the accidents, Austris broke his neck and was hospitalised for 6 months and took a further year to fully recover. He was paralysed from the waist down but eventually regained the used of his legs. When he emerged from hospital and ran into his old friends, they were shocked to see him because they thought he had died.

Austris smokes, but not in the car. He gave up a number of years ago but took it up again recently after a series of dramatic events. In the space of eight months, his girlfriend left him, his grandmother died, his mother had a car accident, and then his father. As we drive towards Lithuania, Austris points out various dangerous spots on the road. He puts on a CD by Natacha Atlas and we discuss life, the universe and everything.

The Hill of Crosses is the most remarkable man-made memorial I have ever seen. It is in the village Jurgaiciai, in the Siauliai district, not far from the Latvian border and was apparently established in 1831 after a rebel uprising. People began to leave crosses there to commemorate the lost rebels. At the beginning of last century there were about 100 crosses - now there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions. During the Soviet era, there were a number of attempts to destroy the Hill, but after each attempt it was resurrected. The site has now been claimed as a symbol of undeterring Lithuanian faith and hope, but pilgrims visit from all over the world, including Pope John Paul II who blessed all of Europe from there in 1993.

The immediate landscape around the Hill is rather flat and unremarkable, which seems to enhance, rather than detract, from the special aura that surrounds it. We drive up to the visitors’ centre where I buy a large cross for my Lithuanian colleague and friend Ona, who is recovering from major surgery back in Hobart. The stallholder gives me a marker pen and I write Ona’s name on the cross. Then Austris and I make our way towards the Hill. There are so many crosses it is almost impossible to appreciate them individually. Newer crosses line the various paths that lead to two summits within the hill and older crosses spread out behind them. In some places the crosses are so thick that the bulk of them are obscured. Dangling from one large cross, old amber rosary beads twirl endlessly and magically in a circle, yet there is no wind. An old lady sits with a begging bowl on the steps leading towards a statue of the Madonna and Austris and I each give her a coin. People also leave coins on memorial stones. I find a place for Ona’s cross near the blue Madonna and say a prayer for her.

Austris tells me he always feels very emotional when he visits the Hill and I can see it in his face. We drive back to Riga at top speed listening to Natacha Atlas again.