Dārziņi
I got the train to Dārziņi, the nearest station to the site. It cost me just a few pence for the short journey, and I almost got more value for money when I nearly missed Dārziņi station. The stations on the line out of Riga were just halts in the forest, and I didn’t realise we were even at a station when the train announcer said “Dārziņi”. I jumped up but didn’t make it to the door in time. At the next stop I got off, and was relieved to find that they had been announcing the stop we were going to and not the one we were at. I headed off into the silent forest, and found the path to Salaspils.
At the site, there is a small museum from which you can look over the fields which are all that remain. Several huge Socialist-realist statues commemorate the dead. In the pale wintry evening light it was very sombre, all the more so because I was the only person there at the time.
Moved and pensive, I walked back through the forest as the sun set, and caught the train back to Riga. I accidentally got off the train one stop too early, fooled again by the announcement of the next stop. I heard them say “Riga” and thought I was about to get whisked off to some part of Latvia I didn’t want to go just yet. But I was at a stop a few miles from the centre of the city, and I had a long cold walk home.
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