Atomic Death in Riga

Practicing performance

On its 5th stop the anti-nuclear “Baltic Sea Info Tour” visited Riga, the capital of Latvia. As in St. Petersburg, the weather was incredibly hot and we had three days full of actions and events from July 11-13. Many people in Latvia don't know much about nuclear energy and the impacts of this dangerous form of energy generation. Latvia has no own nuclear power plants. Besides the local residents we reached masses of tourists from all countries around the sea, as Riga seems to be a popular place for holidays...

 

Anti-nuclear Infotour in Riga

The Sunday we had a 3 hour network meeting in the afternoon, where we went deeper into the preparation of a brochure about nuclear facilities around the Baltic Sea which is a project connected to the Tour and we chatted about the Olkiluoto blockade which is going to take place just one week after the last stop of the Tour in Finland. The rest of the day was filled with action preparation for the next days. While some people wrote a flyer about effects of the radioactivity of the Baltic Sea for the normal population, others built a coffin from cardboard, which was to be used in a performance the next day.

 

With five experienced theatre people in our group, we had a really good performance nearby the Laima clock in the center of Riga on Monday. An atomic funeral procession walked around, catching the eyes of the passers-by. The coffin had a radiation symbol with a skull attached to it and the message “your children, your grandchildren, your grand-grandchildren” in Latvian. Many people willingly took our leaflets, asked questions about nuclear power and were generally interested. Only the police were annoying: They were present with 4 to 6 officers who harped on about some ridiculous rules (seems they had nothing else to do). After two hours in the burning sun we finished our action, having spread about 1,000 flyers.

 

Thursday was the day of a big panel with 6 lecturers in the Latvian Ministry of Environment, a small four-story building nearby the Daugava river. Chris Busby, a scientist from the UK, discussed the health impacts of nuclear facilities around the Irish Sea as well as around the Baltic Sea. The Belarussian professor Georgy Lepin told about the atomic situation in his country mentioning also international impacts of the nuclear industry. Other presentations covered the radioactive pollution of the Baltic Sea, cancer cases in Latvia and the unsolvable challenge of final disposal of nuclear waste.

 

Afterwards, another anti-nuclear performance took place in the streets. Activists dressed up as water power, wind power, earth power and solar power chased nuclear power through the streets. This street theatre caught the sympathy of the public everywhere as did not look scaring. The first impression for the hundreds of tourists and locals we reached was a funny performance, but at a second glance the anti-nuclear message was obvious. Many people were curious and asked really interested questions about nuclear power and our action. The hard day was followed by an evening with chilling down and swimming before leaving to Belarus and Lithuania the next day.

Zeige Kommentare: ausgeklappt | moderiert
spiris but anarchists? funny creative action....... it hopefully works sth more(!) out............

What are you talking about? Sounds weird...