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October 12, 2021October 13, 2021

Latgalian Cruise Premiere Photo Recap

All photos by Nauris Dollins <3

It is unbelievable that our small scene has so many things going on. Just recently we all hung out with Karlis Bogustovs on the opening ceremony of Maxlas’ box and quarter. Straight Forward Skateboards premiered ‘Viss Taisni’ just a couple weeks ago. A lot is going on. We added some fuel to the fire last Saturday with the premiere of our “Latgalian Cruise” video and photo zine presentation.

So, last July we went on a 4 day trip around Latgale. The trip was independent from shops and crews meaning that anyone was welcome to come. We ended up with a 20 people crew. The trip resulted in a 16 minutes video and a ~100 page zine. Both got presented to the public on 9th of October at Gin&Beer Taphouse—Zefirs.

The crowd was big. With all the COVID situation this might have been the last party this year.

Some respected Latvian skaters graced us with their presence—Pardaugavas OG Marcis Ruiķis

First Latvian certified skate coach and the goat—Egons Avots.

Niklavs “Where’s-the-podcast?” Vetra and Toms Bika, OG VX master.

Mysterious DJ Vairis scratched some tune for us.

Mister IZI KCNH himself! The most important person at every skate gathering.

One Arturs organized the trip and the premiere. Another Arturs shot all photos and made a zine. Well, guys named Arturs don’t fuck around.

Rob and Gaba. Two filmers behind the cruise.

Our Made Gvido Valters provided some jams with his band Viral Mind as well as some oysters.

Two die hard fans of Latvian skateboarding—Mr. Shenga and Mr. Aigarini.

Rudik “Big Tuna” Rorbahs looking dangerous in his stylish vintage kit.

Got a stack of Welcome drinks for everyone. Big shout out to Lielvardes and Mangali.

Gaba gave a big drunk speech. Yeee, Love y’all!

The whole Latgalian crew was invited on stage one by one.

Martiņš Reitups, tour’s young technician.

After the video everyone could get their hands on the zine! Mr. Boga’s work could finally become a national treasure,

Huge thank you to everyone who helped out with the event: Toms Bika, Rudolfs Henčels, Arturs Bogdanovičs, Armands IZI KCHN, Vairis Kveps, Nauris Dollins, Gvido Valters and the Viral Mind, Zefirs, Lielvarde, Mangali and everybody else who gave a hand. Of course it wouldn’t be possible without Arturs Nesaule and his mad organization skills. Respect.

Thank you to everyone who supports Latvian skateboarding!

“Latgalian Cruise” going online on Friday 15th of October. Zines will be available in the finest shops soon.

Peace

October 4, 2021

VISS TAISNI

This season, Straight forward skateboards granted us with three premieres of their epic “Viss Taisni”. This certainly made this summer more special as we now have our second Latvian pro, game of skate champion and a high ollie record. “Viss Taisni” brought everybody back to life after a year of lockdowns and we can study this movie all winter and prepare for the next year.

Cheers to Mr. Armandos.

September 30, 2021

VISS TAISNI Riga Premiere

Straightforward skateboards presented their video “Viss Taisni” last Sunday at Lokal house. Though it was breezy, the video played under the open night sky on the signature inflatable screen. The papa of Straightforward Mr. Armandos kept things interesting once again, and organized a high ollie contest before the prem. The previous high ollie record belonged to Karlis Bogustovs, 92 cm. Everyone expected Niklavs to beat the record, and to no surprise he did it setting the record to 93,5 cm.

The premiere turned out great. Again as in previous prems Rob warmed up the crowd with his flick, “R, Vision” and then it went straight to “Viss Taisni”. The friendly Lokal house neighbors called the police and the half of the video was played with a low audio. Still was really special. Thank you Straightforward for good events this year.

This was the last premiere for Viss Taisni as it is dropping online tomorrow.

September 20, 2021September 20, 2021

Maxlas Upgrade

Not really news. It has been two weeks and countless news reports since the opening ceremony. But here we are.

The best takeaway from this is that Kārlis won! He did the impossible and he is our hero!!!

Kārlis you rule brother! Keep it going.

Personally all of this reminded me of Barax a bit and what Kārlis did there.

Remember when Kārlis Bogustovs built a huge box in Barax? Or that narrow glass “quarter”? The times there were simple, and Karlis along with the spot locals could build whatever they wanted.

Back in Barax anything was possible.

But who could of thought that the same mentality would work in the world outside Barax? Well, skaters are a bit nuts, so why not give it a shot.

On 6th of September, we witnessed that it can work. Somehow after spending three years on getting permissions from countless bureaucratic bodies, it all worked out. Latvian National Museum of arts, or Maxlas, has more stuff to skate now, and in a way became Barax 2.0. Anything was possible in Barax. And now it seems anything is possible everywhere.

Imagine how much time a person needs to invests into skating to do fs rocks like this first try. I guess three years of fighting bureaucracy is nothing after that.

Everyone was well fed by the master chef IZI KCHN and for free

Kārlis, Māra Lace the director of the Museum, Mayor of Riga Martiņš Staķis and Madars

Was a bit surreal to see the mayor of Riga giving a speech to skateboarders. You grow up with everyone not taking skating seriously, and then, all of a sudden, people like the mayor of your city is stocked on skating. Also, it a ll boils down to the fact that we are all just humans. Bunch of humans who make decisions and stuff happens.

The path to a mans heart lies throw his stomach

And that’s a wrap. Go skate! Buy Karlis a hotdog. Or something nice. Or just tell him that he’s the man when you see him.

Peace.

PICS BY NAURIS DOLLINS.

September 9, 2021September 9, 2021

SALDUS PARK REVIEW

Fricis and Maksims went to Saldus to check out the new Saldus skatepark. It is a relatively big complex with three sections. The boys walked around and gave their honest expert opinion on what’s going on. Also, they shared some strategies on how to succeed in the upcoming Saldus Action Games this weekend.

September 7, 2021September 7, 2021

Kicker, box and a wallie

Awesome new collaboration video between Tikari Skateshop and Converse CONS. Roberts Krums put some good work into making custom skate obstacles and also the video itself. Good vibes in this. We chatted briefly with Rob about the project.

What’s up Rob. Tell us about this project of yours.
While I was making these obstacles, everything seemed nice. I made them, took them to the spot, and they just shrunk in size. Got upset and didn’t even want to skate them. I felt like all of this project is one big fail.

But you still skated them.
I tried to ollie out of the kicker and almost tore my ACL on the first go. Almost the same as when I tore my ACL on Madars’ kicker at LNB a few years before. I was saying “goodbye” to my knee, but I got lucky and it all worked out. Then I tried a nosegrind and the same shit happened. I tweaked my knee. I hurt so bad. But again turned out good after.

How did it all worked out in the end?
Thanks to Arturs Nesaule’s super positivity. I don’t know, I just overcame my ego or something and did some of my tricks on it. The boys skated well. Somehow it all happened. I told Rorbahs that I couldn’t understand how did I manage to build shit like that. He replied that it wasn’t that bad. But of course I am always my own worst critic.

How did you decide to make exactly this kind of stuff? Kicker, box, wallie?
I just wanted to build something that you can skate from all sides. So we could film more back to back clips, so everyone comes from their own side. But as you can see in the video, there’s not a single back to back clip.

Whatever, it had some other stuff. I skated the obstacles when you were at LNB, it seemed fun. Good that you built a kicker. I think it is Latvian National Skate obstacle haha.
Yeah, kicker is the new flat.

I saw people asked in comments if there’s a chance to skate these obstacles somewhere.
Yeah of course, we just need to come up with a good spot. I had an idea to leave them next to Academy of Arts’ dumpsters. Or maybe make holes in the obstacles and lock them somewhere. I don’t know. But probably people working there wouldn’t be excited about it. Or maybe leave them at Grizins with that red box that nobody skates because flat is shit. I thought of leaving them at LNB, but there’s already a lot of stuff to grind.

But there’s no kickers there.
That’s true.

Photos by: Arturs Nesaule
Interview and Translation by: Ed Gaba

September 1, 2021September 1, 2021

Meanwhile in Saldus

For a small city, Saldus has a decent skate infrastructure, one indoor park and an outdoor park which contains three sections. As it’s been raining all day, we mostly skated the indoor park. The indoor is run by the local Saldus Saldie crew. The guys have built it themselves and kept it running for sometime now.

The park has some traditional Latvian skatepark elements such as a fly box and huge quarters, but also it has a more chill zone with flat and movable figures. The boys have kickers of all shapes and sizes, flatbars, two boxes (one of which soaked in a local river for a few years) and a mini spine, which was our favorite thing to skate there.

In the evening the weather cleared up, so we went to to check out the outdoor parks too. The park is pretty big and has a bunch of cool things to skate. We are going to have a separate video review of the park from Fricis and Maksims soon. Stay tuned.

Big shout out to Saldus Saldie for the hospitality. Also, make sure to visit Saldus on 11th of September for Saldus Action Games. More info here.

Previosly: Meanwhile in Ventspils

August 9, 2021August 9, 2021

VISS TAISNI PREMIERE

Last weekend Straightforward skateboards hosted the first public premiere of their latest movie “VISS TAISNI”. As it is difficult to find a good place for a premiere in Riga, Armands Baumanis joined forces with Liepaja’s Wise skateshop and transferred the premiere to the Windy city. We certainly could not miss this.

Besides skate videos, which there was three, the program included a game of skate competition. In a series of bizarre events, the final four winners consisted of the gentlemen seen on the photo below. Not gonna spoil who got what place, as you can see this obvious turnout in the video recap.

The crowd got to watch the movie in an improvised open-air cinema in the backyard of Wise Liepaja. The screening took an hour and a half and stopped right in time before the neighbors called the cops.

Along with “VISS TAISNI” we got to watch the local Liepaja’s gang movie and Robs R. Vision.

Big thank you to Wise Liepaja and Straightforward skateboards for keeping it real. See you all at Riga premiere.

August 6, 2021August 7, 2021

Meanwhile in Ventspils

Ventspils is a sick place for an annual skate trip. It is the only place where you can skate a vert ramp and a huge skatepark with a kink rail. If that is not enough, you can always have a low impact session at Latvija’s second best flatground plaza next to Ventspils concert hall. If you are lucky you can bump into Madars Apse or even Aivars Lembergs. And, after an intense session you can restore your energy levels at Diana Pancakes and Pelmeni joint.

July 16, 2021

VISS TAISNI SCREENING

Early June, Straight Forward skateboards premiered their third full length video “Viss Taisni” and announced that Linards Viksniņš is a professional skateboarder. Watch full recap from the event below and come to the public premiere of “Viss Taisni” in Liepaja.