Riga Nightlife
BUDGET BOOZING IN RIGA
British Stag Parties Head East in Search of Cheap Beer
excerp of a text from Erich Wiedemann
Just a short and cheap EasyJet or Ryanair flight away from London, Western European tourists are storming Eastern European cities like Tallinn and Riga.
It's early in the morning in Dicken's Pub, and the punters are hung over. Sean from Worcester has lost his passport. Brian from Nottingham lost his heart to a pretty woman in the Cherry Club -- and then promptly lost the woman to a rich Russian. James Paul from Clacton-on-Sea hasn't lost any of his possessions yet. It's just his hotel that he can't find, being too drunk to remember where it is.
Sean rubs his baseball cap across the stubble on his chin. The situation clearly calls for another drink. "Three more pints, lad," he shouts over to the bartender, who looks at him expectantly. "And three voddies," Sean adds. There is little that cannot be fixed with beer and vodka, Sean is convinced.
Dicken's Pub on Grecinieku Street in the Latvian capital of Riga is a top destination for British stag and hen parties, where bridegrooms (stags) or brides-to-be (hens) bid a raucous farewell to their single days in the alcohol-fueled company of their closest friends.
Drink yourself unconscious for €15
Reflecting increasing globalization and rising disposable incomes, the British tradition of the stag and hen party -- which used to involve just a night out in the local pub -- has relocated abroad in recent years. Given the vast quantities of alcoholic beverages needed for such events, the price of beer is the most important cost factor. And when it comes to beer prices, Eastern Europe is well ahead of the competition. In Riga, for example, you can drink yourself unconscious on beer for only £10 (€15) -- which would barely buy a round of pints back home. As an added bonus, licensing laws are relaxed -- bars in Eastern Europe close when they want to.
<
Budget airlines mean travel costs are negligible. A round-trip ticket from London's Stansted Airport to Tallinn in the off-season costs just £27 (€40), less than two day passes for the London Underground. One three-day package, succinctly dubbed "Beer, Steak and Tits" by its organizers, can be had for under £100 -- accommodation included.
Although the Czech capital Prague remains the epicenter of organized drinking tourism, the trend is moving toward other Eastern European cities, as Warsaw, Krakow and the Baltic cities of Riga in Latvia and Tallinn in Estonia quickly gain in popularity. Prague Pissup, the leader among stag party agencies, has opened half a dozen branches in Eastern Europe in the last six years.
The customer is king, especially in Riga , even if his behavior is everything but regal and includes such antics as depositing his clothing on the bar and running naked through the cities' baroque backstreets. Local residents console themselves with the hope that these young people will return with their families one day to experience true Baltic culture.
The Finns who swarm over to the Baltic states en masse from high-priced Helsinki on weekends aren't exactly paragons of good behavior either. But the antics of the British, says Tarmu Tammerk, the former editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Postimees, are sometimes unbearably awful. "They are extremely loud and scare away the other customers," says Tammerk.
Reputable travel agencies inform their clients in advance that activities like urinating in public fountains or tossing furniture from hotel rooms are frowned upon. But true stags would rather go by the slogan used by package tour operator Crazy Stag: "Be a bad boy in the Eastern bloc."
But tolerance has its limits. A crisis is already emerging in the midst of the boom. A few weeks ago the following sign was posted on the door of the Cuba Café at Jauniela 15 in Riga: "No stag parties, no hockey players." That was how the decline started in Prague.
But the stag party industry is as pragmatic as a multinational carmaker. If it's no longer wanted in one place, it'll just move on to the next location. Prague Pissup just opened an office in Kiev. A pint of beer in Tallinn may cost half as much as it does in Prague -- but in Kiev it's half as expensive again.
|
source: DER SPIEGEL
more from Erich Wiedemann
|
|
|
