Fricis Štrauss – Bs Powerslide/Photo – Antti Sinitsyn
Summer is almost over and some of its biggest highlights have passed us faster than the brave hearts who dared to challenge biggest downhill in Estonia. According to anonymous Estonian skate experts, it was indeed the biggest downhill they have ever seen in their country. We are talking about thathill in Viljandi that presumably 3 to 6 people bombed during Viljandi Bash weekend. Aleksandr Tubin aka Friendly Satan bombed it powerslide free and in the dark. Obviously the footage doesn’t give this monster justice. But it is a steep hill with bunch of turns, cracks, cars etc. Check out Fricis take on the spot as he might be the first one to do it? At least the first one we saw do it on Sunday morning before the contest.
And now back to our regular program.
There is an inspirational clip about Fully Ghetto, they skate some spots about Kaunas and talk about their crew in Lithuanian.
Latvian gang went to Helride, still waiting for videos from that! Meanwhile there is an article over at Kingpin and a video over at Transworld about it. The Pis Taisni video which is coming later this year will probably have some footage from that trip.
Enjoy the remaining warm month! Skate and film, and if you post that dope street shit make sure it reaches us somehow, as we are making monthly top 10s now! Give us something to work with!
RAJONTV best clips of the month! A countdown of clips and tricks we enjoyed the most this month. Going to feature only skaters from the Baltic states and only street clips. We will try to post these every month, if ou guys give us more material to work with it may happen more often 🙂 so go film some and post it where we can see it. Add this thin —> #rajontop10 might help! And yes, we did steal the concept from Quartersnacks.
Skate contests can be boring, skate contests can be too serious, and sometimes they are in the middle where fun and good times meet, where sporty attitude steps aside and party kicks in. For us Viljandi Bash was something like that. An action packed two-day contest that brought together all of the Baltics as well as Finnish crowd. It felt more like a festival rather than a contest! There was always something to do, some extra activities to get your tipsy body to. On Friday Viljandi Bash opened with a game of skate, which took place on a street next to a pre-party club. That game of skate alone was a perfectly fine reason to visit Viljandi that weekend.
Super noisy game of skate! Sorry residentsStocked on every trick! fs 180? FUUUUUUUUUCK YEEEEEEEEE
We had our money on our man Miks Grantinsh, but he lost. However, he lost to Onni which made it easier for us, cause Onni is fucking rad. Eventually Onni won the whole thing! Congrats! Positive energy all the way!
Our favorite Finn Onni Saltevo got the first place in the game of skate. Wild
All of this madness happened before the real contest had started! Next day was the qualification runs. After that there was supposed to be a football match between all 4 countries that skated in the contest, but apparantlly people got lost, and it didn’t happen (we need to do it next year). In the evening we went to the premiere of Project C an Estonian skate video about a trip to China! It was awesome, it is probably coming online very soon, make sure to watch it if you haven’t been to the premiere! Some people didn’t make it, as the seats were limited, but it didn’t seem to bother them. Upon exiting the premiere a big crowd was chilling at the entrance and the party continued!
Happy people after the premiere
The night was long and the organisers had another surprise for us – a freaking gladiator challenge! A fighting ring with foam around like in Dime you know, guys had to fight for the prizes! No photos from this, it was too crazy! So, after getting thrown out of the party we went to the finals. Friendly Satan Aleksandr Tubin went berserk and smashed it in his run, nollie heelflipping into shit and all that! Out Latvian mate Linards Viksnins killed the best trick doing crooks nollie fs heel out on a rail, first try. And it was all over.
Some mad love at the finalsThe Winners!
Thanks a lot to all of the Viljandi Bash team and skate homies! It was a great weekend with plenty of stuff to do and awesome people to do it with. Looking forward for next year! Check out our recap video below.
Cover Photo: Kelvinas Litvinas by Rūstusis Brokolis Words: Edvard Gaba
Links got lost in the hype. The weather in May was so good, and the swimming season was opened way before it normally is. Not much time to write posts during that time, but yeah links are back. We will try to sum up very important Baltic skate scene events that happened recently.
June started with a wave of inspirational stuff. Thanks to Madars Apse, who brought his pro skater homies to our forgotten land. His crew, consisting of Josef Scott Jatta, Nick Garcia, Gosha Konyshev and Pat Duffy, went loose around Latvia visiting cities, and skating street. Madars also organized a session at Ventspills water park. The last spot was in Riga at Latvian National Library. Locals went crazy and destroyed the library rail. Full report is coming some time soon.
Levs – Fs Board at LNB. Photo by: Nauris Dollins
Vans Latvian Street League was going on in full in June. We had two contests so far. First in Barona park and the second in Sigulda! Two more coming. Next contest is in Cesis on 21st of July.
Latvian expatKlavs Laivenieksreturns withBroke Lads episode four. Featuring the streets and alley ways of London and Barcelona. Pavels and Berjoza can be spotted there as well.
Tikari skateshop instagram was pretty active recently and they posted tons of clips. Somehow music choices in these vids hint on the person behind them edits.
Jarmo Kangro living on the edge! Photo: Vana Isa
Speaking of Tikari skateshop, they are organizing Ghetto Games which are coming really soon, on 27th – 29th of July. Every year it a great party and one of the best contests for sure.
And speaking of ghetto, Fully Ghetto gang went on a night spot crawl, as a result this edit was born. Stocked to witness New York’s Emil Morris on his home turf, as well as skateboard transition virtuoso Žygimantas Rudys doing flip tricks in the streets. We are going to use this opportunity to post our old video when we skated Vilnius at night as well. Just like that for no reason.
Vilnius had a gnarly go skate day! From what we have heard the number of skaters there surpassed the number of scooter riders during a sunny day at Barona skatepark (which is a lot of people). The Lithuanian skate prodigy KelvinasLitvinas was the MVP of the day. Apparently, he also got Lithuanian Skater of the Year award which was decided through an open internet vote! Congratulations Kelvinas! We talked Siom Sonkinas one of the organisers and the man behind Commune DIY about how it all went down:
The vibe was epic ! Last year we had the end spot at Kalnu parkas, so this year we started there and went through 4 other spots, roughly around 150 skaters with boards showed up. We did the paper work to have an official end spot in this newly built centre square ‘ Lukiskiu aikste ‘ took half of the Core indoor park there. So from 15.00 to 18.00 everyone was traveling thru spots to the end one. We had speed glasses challenge, fastest kickflip , NIKE sb bench best trick and SOTY awards . The kids were very stoked about the end spot , everyone was coming up to us and saying that this is a total French ‘ Le republiqe ‘ vibe.
Riga Go Skate Day video by Linards’ cousin HeiJah is here. Our check out our article and video about the event here.
It was a perfect day to go skate, and despite being a working day people showed up. And we had it all: it was sunny, cloudy, hot and of course rainy, like almost all go skate days. The formats this year were pretty mellow, everyone could participate and have fun. We had a game of skate at Museum, best trick up and down a curb at LNB and a skatepark session at Uzvara park. The park was super sick, it was designed to replicate famous skate spots around the world – so we had a mini Hubba Hideout, Barceloneta banks, wave spot from China and a school yard picnic table. Huge respect to Krisjanis Kalvans for setting it all up for us.
Niklavs Vetra – Heelflip
Watching insta clips from go skate days around the world I can say that in Riga we are super low impact. We didn’t have much jumping down stuff or handrails, our go skate day was more or less like a walk in the park.
Miks Grantiņš judging game of skate contest
It is pretty cool that all shop throw in prizes and support one event together. It feels like couple years ago stuff like that was unheard of and shops prefered to organize separate events simultaneously. Good thing these times are in the past.
Game of skate was really dope, everyone could play and it made surprising combinations of opponents. In the end it all went down to three guys – Arts, Edijs and Cocain. They had to battle it out till 10 letters. The crowd went wild when only Edijs and Arts were left rolling. They already had met in a game of skate before and back then it didn’t go so good for Arts. This game was different and it seemed that Edijs was done for. Arts had him in the corner with 8 letters and even managed to pull Edijs’ signature fakie double flip. We were sure he had it, until it was Edijs’ turn, and magically he made an epic comeback. Video shows it all, so make sure to check it out below!
Cocain, Edijs and Arts
After that we moved to LNB and had a best line contest. Dudes had to do a trick up and down a curb. As a result we had a tigh between Reinis Rorbahs and Niklavs Vetra, who both had some nice lines. Session ended with a small rain and later on on the way to Uzvara it poured properly
LNB curb challenge winners
Last spot was Uzvara parks with specially made obstacles. Everything was wet and rain wasn’t planning to stop. Krisjanis started to hype people up by saying they can get prizes for landing tricks in the rain! Organically it all turned into an intense session. Linards was blasting like a maniac on every spot, nobody told him it was rainig. We had three main disciplines: best trick on wave kicker, hubba/stairs session, longest manual contest, double box no push line. Make sure to ckeck out the video, it has it all. Shout out to all skaters and organizers! A great event indeed.
This here thing is a little something that I and my friends experienced and documented in the last one or two months. Good party’s and good skateboards and good i mean perfect weather. really really good times. The sound in the background is from a jam music party session that is happening every Tuesday in places Thanks to Armands. well so this is them jammin on music tools in bars and we jammin outside whit our skateboard tools. nothing serious just jammin.
Enjoy
Skateboarding has become bigger than it ever was, and nowadays we have skateboarders that are concerned with a lot more than getting lit, skating cellar doors, or hanging out at hip skater bars. Skaters are starting to tackle more thought-provoking subject matter.
Pushing Boarders, skateboarding’s first academic conference, was, in my eyes, an event where skate nerds like myself could gather and discuss the really important topics, and how they relate to this thing we’re obsessed with. Aside from other skateboarding gatherings like contests, video premieres, and trade shows—which involve a lot of partying and conversations that consist of,”That’s sick man! Fuck yeah G! Did you see that? Shiiiiiit!”—Pushing Boarders addressed questions that some of us never though of. Or intentionally ignored, even. Questions about race, identity, sexuality, homophobia, diversity, charity, skate academia, and the real owners of the skateboarding industry.
It was amazing to be a part of, and I want to thank the organizers—Long Live South Bank, Re-Verb, and SkatePal—for making it possible. It was a truly unique experience to meet so many amazing people and see so much good energy in skating in one weekend. To read more about the programs, check out Iain Borden’s excellent write-up, or Tobias Coughlin-Bogue’s recap in Vice. This video is my best attempt to capture it all.
Words by Edvard Gaba Huge Thanks to Tobias Coughlin-Bogue for editing the text
Karlis Bogustovs and Jevgenijs “Jefka” Kostirko contributed their time and energy to make a new obstacle at, the most notorious Riga DIY spot, BARIX. The goal of the project was to make a more challenging obstacle, and to experience longer slides and grinds. According to Karlis and Jefka, old box was too low and short. As a result, they build this monster of a box which was fun to skate only for Karlis. Check the video for proof.
And remember, if you go to any DIY spot where you don’t know anyone, be humble, introduce yourself, bring locals a treat (beer, water etc.) offer help with the spot, don’t leave trash, obviously. Of course these things don’t mean you will be welcomed, but you can still give it a shot.
Don’t forget that there are people who build these spots, and even consider them as their second home, and they are not always happy to see some strangers lurking around.
I don’t know a better way to get the warm season started then going for a trip with them boys. May brings the sun out almost every year, so we decided to head out to Tallinn 4th-6th of May. The plan was simple – get footy, shoot photos, crack some cold ones in between. Our squad consisted of Tikari skateshop team riders – Linards Vīksniņš, Kristofers Ozols, Artūrs Nesaule, Miks Grantiņš and our photographer Nauris Dollins, filmer Toms Bika, also Jefka and Niks (Latvian OG’s) came along.
So the first mission was to get the tour van which we rented out from a sketchy place, well, if it’s cheap and it runs, we’ll take it. The van looked like it has been vacuumed like never, but everything else was fine. The only thing that surprised us was that we couldn’t seal the petrol tank, haha. So doing a turn we had to be a little careful because the gas was spilling out a little bit.
We met in Tikari skateshop on Miera street 12, packed the van with our bags, boards, Monster energy drinks and Labietis beer, so we were ready to hit the road. 320 km and around a 4,5h drive was ahead of us. The way there was fine, little bit of road rages here and there, but nothing worth to mention…
Our Filmer for the trip Toms BikaGuys waiting for the ”white limo”I put the whole trip together, so I was pretty hyped to hit the roadOur bodyguard of the trip – Jefka
We didn’t have problems finding our Airbnb apartment and actually it was really good. Nice balcony, big ass TV, every bed had like 4 pillows, a small sauna, much better than living in tents like we did in Helsinki trip, haha. The van was parked, flat was found, fridge was stacked with beers, we were ready to go SKATE! We took the public bus to get to the Freedom square skate spot, by taking a bus I mean taking a free ride.
I have skated the Freedom square once, so I knew it’s the best place to start things off. The spot has everything a skater would want and there are no kick outs, definitely check it out if you’re in Tallinn.
Grants balancing his way to a successful fs tailslide to fakie manny as seen in the video.
We got some clips straight away but as the sun went down it got really cold and windy, so we decided to call it a day.
Saturday brought us very good weather, it was sunny but still windy. Tallinn, why you so windy? Our first mission was to find Surfhouse skateshop, Linards had to get a griptape for his fresh board.
Looking for spots
We found this dope bank, maybe not the best option to get a primo and slam with your back into some stairs in the morning, but it worked out fine…
Linards – Nollie fs heel on a steep oneGrants with a nollie heelflip
Later during the day we found these perfect 5 stairs, Nesaule built a wallie spot using a plastic bench and Linards blasted a cool looking wallie melon grab.
Linards Wallie melonKids getting a little booster from Monster energy drinks
We had some technical issues with our batteries for the camera, while the guys went back home to get the chargers we were hanging out at “Freedom square”…
Linards did a crazy impossible at Freedom square spot, so he earned himself a cold one from Labietis
Last day of the trip, Sunday. Sore legs and muscles, sore throat from the bloody wind, classic vibes for the last day of the trip.
We met up with Elza, a skater friend of ours from Riga, she helped us with the parking spot for the van, so we could go by boards from spot to spot
We couldn’t even get the chance to warm up at the first spot when an old security guard was kicking us out. But he gave me 3 tries to execute a nose wheelie to fs lipslide so I took the challenge and the old guy lost.
Grants nosemanny to lipslide
While looking for spots I saw this nice public park where we could just chill and figure out what’s the plan. There was a nice, small water gap which we could skate but Kristofers had Matrix glitch and rode right through it making it impossible to skate and later he had to chill the whole day with wet feet. He got a line there so no one was bummed.
It was already getting late and we had a long way back home, but Nesaule found a spot we could hit on the way to Riga. It was interesting bank spot not so easy to skate as it looks in the video. Guys got some lines and tricks there and we could call it a wrap for the trip.
A bit of waxingArturs Nesaule – back tail no problem
Thank you Monster Energy and Labietis for supporting our adventure. Thank you goes out to locals we met on our way. Thanks Tikari skateshop team for the good times!
Photos by Nauris Dollins Video by Toms Bika Words by Miks Grantiņš
R.USH HOUR 2018 is a wrap. The winners were announced and BBQ was eaten. The weather was incredibly hot that day, so we went to skate outside on the bridge to nowhere spot, which is not far from G-tiim park. There is a hill with barriers, but aside from that we managed to get a box and a rail from Monsterparks, as well as two dangerous “kickers” to skate. Nevertheless, it all turned out great without any injuries or law problems.
Arturs Bogdanovičs (Mr.Boga) was kind enough to make some photos from the event as well, so take a look and also check out the video which is in the end of the post.
On the way to the spot. Arts putting in some workThe Mysterious Bridge to NowhereRudolfs nailed a line and Gaba is wearing the new Rajon shirt, DM if interestedBack in HQ just in time for BBQGathering crowd’s predictions. Video in the end of the postTake it while it is hotShow time! Props to CONVERSERudolfs got the prizes for the best line on the bridge, as well as was surprised by getting on ANTIZ skateboards flow. So buy some ANTIZ boards to support him!Arturs Bogdanovičs got the crowd’s favorite part! Well deserved
And here is the video recap.
R.USH HOUR is over! We are super stoked how it all turned out. Big thanks to all of the participants and supporters – Tikari skateshop, Clockwise Skateshop and CONVERSE. The paln is to return next year with a different crew of skaters. So have a good one and stay tuned!
