Hotel Neiburgs in Riga

There are cities, with all their splendor, that are cold, and there are cities that are ascetic and yet warm. Tiny Riga is an example of just such a gingerbread cozy city. And the hotels here are a match: if you don’t take into account the monsters of the Soviet era, the number of rooms in the Latvian capital is entirely respect for details, concern for the comfort and convenience of the guest. He should be warm, but at the same time at ease, he should be at home, but he has the right to feel like a guest if such a whim suddenly happens to him. The 55-room hotel, which the Neuburgs family opened in their ancestral home on the historic Jauniela Street, is prepared for the most extreme whims of clients from big, rich Russia - subject to compliance with the laws of the small, proud country.

This Neiburgs is the living history of Latvia. Arriving in Riga from his native village on a boat for transporting hay, the founder Ludwig Neuburgs quickly mastered the craft of a mason and carved out an entire empire. His company built the most important institutions: the building of the Ministry of Finance in the old town, sugar factories in Krustpils, Jelgava and Liepaja, a technologically unique bridge across the Gauja River in Sigulda. The house, where picky guests from all over the world are now lured to sleep and eat, was built in 1903 according to the design of the architect Wilhelm Boxlaff, widely known in narrow Baltic circles. However, it was not intended for hotel needs: it was an apartment building.

Then what happened happened: Latvia became Soviet, and in the old house, according to the laws of that harsh time, communal apartments and rooms for party members were built. Holy restitution returned the Art Nouveau building to the hands of the family that had once built it, and new good work began. During the most thorough restoration, it was possible to restore the façade, restore the ceiling paintings, antique doors and parquet floors. However, this does not mean at all that the hotel is completely immersed in antiquity: it is a modern Scandinavian hotel, just with a spectacular history.

Across the street from neiburgs things were going on just as bad. A London cab with strange personalities constantly drove up there

The Neiburgs Hotel is a natural extension of the Baltic city, in which the layers of time did not destroy one another, but lay gloriously on top of each other. Anyone who watched the main Soviet blockbuster “Seventeen Moments of Spring” can remember the facade of this amazing establishment - it’s easier to find just one eccentric who didn’t watch it. Professor Pleischner unsuccessfully fell out of the window of this particular house on Flower Street, and it was on the stairs along which clients now climb to their hotly heated rooms that the Gestapo bandits were waiting for him.

Across the street from Neiburgs, however, things were going on no worse. A London cab with all sorts of strange personalities constantly drove up there, visiting the famous detective Sherlock Holmes. Baker Street from the brilliant Soviet film, recognized as the world's best adaptation of Conan Doyle's outstanding detective stories, is located directly opposite Neiburgs. You can watch those who are now rushing to the apartment of the famous detective directly from the hotel restaurant, without looking away from herring, pearl barley, chicken liver, rhubarb, mushrooms, pumpkin, beets and cottage cheese - all that the simple, but desperately tasty and satisfying Latvian cuisine.

During Christmas and New Year's weeks, however, the hotel - remember the attention to detail - also offers special menus. On the quiet days of Catholic Christmas, holidaymakers are tempted by ravioli with wild duck, ricotta cheese and spices, Latvian fish soup with vegetables, vodka and herbs, the aroma of which wafts almost to the Central Administrative District of Moscow, and the back of a suckling pig glazed in honey and stewed in juice black currants and red cabbage. Would they dare to offer cabbage not stewed in blackcurrant juice! On New Year's Eve, the table won't be desperately empty either. The program for the most important night of the year includes duck fillet carpaccio with whipped goat cheese cream, ravioli with pike perch and crab meat, oyster and celery soup with salmon mousse and veal fillet cooked at 62 degrees with chestnuts fried in butter. and dried boletus puree.

It is very important to remember that Riga is the birthplace of the New Year tree, and in honor of this indisputable fact, a memorial plaque was mounted in the pavement near the famous House of the Blackheads. The two main Riga Christmas trees are traditionally installed on Town Hall and Dome squares, where a Christmas market is also held at the same time. However, fairs with mulled wine, alpaca gloves and other festive fun are held on Bastion Hill, and on Livu Square, and on the Esplanade - for a whole month the city lives in the rhythm of a fairy tale: this is how it is in warm cities.

www.neiburgs.com

Eduard Dorozhkin, Tatler

In the homeland of the Christmas tree