Armands Blumfelds ex-coach at Rigas Skateboard Skola vs steezy street head Toms Leģers!
Next week we are going to post three games, or otherwise it will take forever!
Linards Vīksniņš vs Andis Ivanans
Rūdolfs Rorbahs vs Artūrs Paugurs
Dāvis Šenbergs vs Nauris Dollinatelo
I instantly said yes to an idea about getting in the train and doing a weekend session in the seaside city Jūrmala with some real skateboard homies who enjoy skating streets not parks or plazas. And you know why I said yes? Because it brings back my memories of the times when I spent almost whole summer in this beautiful city and did the same sessions over and over from sunrise till sunset with rollerblades on my feet.
Linards, Miks, Armands, Mark, Fricis, Deda, Rudolfs and Gaba. All photos by Kaspars Alksnis,
If you look at Jūrmala from the clouds then you will see that this city is like a long snake or banana, and that means – further you get, more spots you explore. Our result was no big deal, maybe couple blocks, but still we had tons of fun, great spots, good vibes, kickass clips and juicy photos. That’s all you need to keep spirit and your body alive in the good old streets.
Big up to whole crew and Gaba for bringing back these cool memories. Keep pushing on boards and go in the streets more you go to the parks. That’s the real shit!
Rajon in Jurmala Words by Miks Grantiņš
Jūrmala the hometown of Fricis Štrauss, ok, Ķemeri, same, same but different, he has grown up there and has been molded by those streets, that’s why it was a must go destination for RajonTV. The idea for Fricis and the crew was simple, take a bunch of skaterats to Jūrmala, film, take photos, have fun skating all day and visit Ķemeri for a BBQ session, EASY!
Miks Grantiņš
The story goes lil something like this…
On Friday after work met some friends for a little nameday celebration, went to bed pretty early and on Saturday morning met up with Kaspars Alksnis. Morning sunshine, hot coffee, seeing the smile of Kaspars, I already knew it’s going to be a really good, nice, productive Saturday. At 10:24, the train to Dzintari, first stop of Cali trip! Our crew was ready:
Deda – OG Čalīīī (kulačkomzabil)
Armands Blumfelds – Blūmis
Linards Vīksniņš – Pliners, Līnis, Banāns
Ed Gaba – RajonTV god, Gaba, the filmer
Marks – Markeyo
Rudolfs Rorbahs – Andy Roy
Miks Grantiņš – Graņa
Right out of the train. First spot Dzintari station.Fricis battling. Gaba on pointFricis Štrauss – Kickflip.
At 11:00 we met Fricis at Dzintaru train station, he had a boom box and a really big smile on his face. First stop, a 7 stair handrail. First ollies, first primos, first flatground tricks. Markeyo first try kickflip from stairs was beast, Fricis had not only a battle with a kickflip over the rail but also with an old lady, she was running a small toilet for 0.25euros near the landing. First broken board, but the kickflip was a success, perfect. Fricis was hyped and pissed at the same time, but he handed everyone a cold can of beer and the hype was real again. 12:00 first clips done, let’s move on.
Rudolfs Rorbahs – Beanplant
Jomas street is one of main places where tourists walk around on do their tourist stuff. Like taking pictures of us checking a spot out. Classic tourists. We were quite as ninjas and managed to get some stuff done, but soon some ladies were sick of our shit and asked us to move on to another place.
Speed is essential.Linards Vīksniņš – OllieLinards making noise at Jomas street with a proper kickflip.
While walking down the street we found some skatepark type of spot, it was an old restaurant flat or something, not really sure, but we could skate it that’s wassup. At every spot there was a scooter kid passing by or just watching us skate, classic scooter kids. I battled a manual trick at the spot, landed 2 perfectly but got stuck in the wooden flatground, but still got it. Finally also Potašs joined our session. Another beer, some nice music, next spot? Get some food.
Gaba – wallie. First film, then skate!Rooftops with Fricis. Scooter kids showed us that spot.Miks – 180 Manual
Café? Maybe the sketchiest small picas and cupcakes Jūrmala can offer, but it was cheap so whatever. Eat something, decided to go check out one of the nicest spots around, the Museum of Majori. It had a perfect gap, I guess everyone did a trick down it, Fricis did a really good many trick. Markeyo did a trick and after it tried a 360 flip over a manhole, broke his tail, classic Markeyo, haha. Linards ate shit, because we demanded one more try, but he was good, we had a nice laugh about it.
Deda – fs 180 at Jurmala Museum spot
Next and final stop. The Majoru beach Turtle. Spot has nice flat, 3, 4 and 9 stair. Mostly a lot of people are walking around there but as the weather is not the best to go sun tanning or swimming the spot was ours. As my back is not in a perfect condition to jump down stuff I was mostly filming isnta clips, but the boys were going off for sure. Linards and Rorbahs did some really good lines, BRAVO! Deda and Gaba took this session to another level, as both of them haven’t done a kickflip and switch flip down anything, the 4 stair was the mission. After couple of trys Deda did his first kickflip and later on Gaba did it switch. Everyone was hyped, screaming, running to congratulate him, I guess the tourists were like “God damn skateboarders”, but fuck em! It was almost getting dark everyone was little bit tired and the idea of Fricis backyard sounded the best.
Final spot of the day. Fricis rolling on the turtles back.Rudolfs tried a dope trick. We decided to keep it for his part.And yes he did it!
At Majori jumped in a mini bus and off went to Ķemeri, like 30min ride. Fricis was a good host and had bought a case of beers, some chicken wings and made big bowl of rice. Grill was on fire, Gaba was singing his favourite Russian songs while jamming the guitar, Deda was telling some life stories, Linards sipping on a 2l big ass beer bottle, everyone had a amazing time. The last session was on Fricis miniramp, in complete darkness Potašs did a switch blunt stall and we could call it a day.
Thanks Fricis for hosting, Gaba for filming, Kaspars for photos and everyone else, turn up. Hope this story helped you to imagine our amazing day, see you guys on the grind PEACE! And here is the video!
Words by Miks Grantiņš @miksgrantins Intro words and Photos by Kaspars Alksnis @kasparsalksnis Video by Edvards Gaba @edvardgaba
Originally we wanted to fake the matchup so Egons could play against Marcis. When we told this to Egons he said he would not participate in that, so the matchup was real and we couldn’t witness Marcis vs Egons battle! At least we placed their games next to each other, so we could have a veteran weekend!
Next weekend games:
Arturs Bogdanovics vs Kristofer Ozols
Armands Blumfelds vs Toms Leģers
Legendary Latvian skateboarder Marcis Ruikis against the young gun Arturs Nesaule!
We apologize for the screaming host, sound problems and shitty quality! We are learning on the go! We had to film this game on a VX simply because Marcis’s OGness doesn’t look so good in HD. Respect the roots!
Next game on Sunday- Egons Avots vs Arturs Gaugers
Cover photo by Egons Avots. Skater: Guntis Ozoliņš? Photo taken from Avantis Latvijas Sk8tūre photo archive.
September is over
Edijs Aizstrauts accidentally got in our game of skate championship and won the first game already! The dude has been around since the dawn of skateboarding in Latvia but didn’t really get into any spot light, he also made tons of web clips and video parts that no one ever talks about. But don’t you just love it that he is in the championship! We are pretty stoked on that for sure! Good luck Edijs and viva la Bam.
Arturs Bogdanovičs in the new park/ Photo by Kaspars Alksnis
The new Barona skatepark in Riga left all of us speechless and mindblown (minus the bowl). It is not only a significant event for Riga skaters but also the neighboring countries’ homies. For instance Meelis Erm and his weird-music-choice crew visited recently and skated there.
Speaking of Meelis check out his new instagram account, which main focus is skateboarding in Parnu as we understand. Also we are not sure if it is his account, just an assumption. And the last thing about Meelis, it seems like he can boardslide anything as we see in the vids. So the question is: who do you think has the best boardslide in the Baltics: Meelis or Einius? We should test that someday!
If you were wondering why NiklavsVetra is not in the game of skate championship, well he left the country to “study” in Portugal and will be back next summer. We will hopefully see him in the championship next year. Till then you can follow him on his cheesy video blog thing Niklavs Goes. Which has some skate clips!
Miestaprincis aka Rudolfs Hencels has put out some slowmo clips of everybodies favorite Latvian skaters. Our favorite is this one! We don’t know what he is cooking there, but rumor has it that he has been filming some stuff and stacking clips, so maybe we will see some edit in the future.
If you are into insta-scrolling than check out Mark’s account. He has been putting some compilationvideoslately (The last link has our favorite saldus saldais Andis in it). And also Mik had a dope compliation where he shows how to win five beers from a pro skater.
Since we are on the pro topic, have you seen the new Mad World Episode? Our staff member Deda has a sick slam in the intro, which we are really proud of. We also liked the Latvian Berrics part, dope.
We made a test about Latvian skateboarding this week! Go complete it if you still haven’t. Results of the test are good but at the same time thretening, take a look for yourselfs.
Although, most people are advanced skate nerds the scooter kids are not far away and enclosing on us. So stay alert!
Remember times when there were no scooter kids? Instead we had kids chasing each other in the park, don’t know what is better. If you want to travel back in time and refresh your memories we strongly recommend you watching Avantis skate tour video from 2004 that they kindly posted to Facebook recently. Probably the best skate video ever made in Latvia, the only video that almost made me cry. Skateboarding is the best!
There are also two links to photos from this tour which are must see as much as the video itself. We stole the cover photo for this post from these obviously.
Bildes pieejamas līdz 25. novembrim:
Uģis Brālēns: https://failiem.lv/u/5tg3qucz#_
Egons Avots: https://failiem.lv/u/t9pp277p#_
If you want to be featured in our links section than either tag us in your insta posts @rajontv, or use the hashtag #latvianskateboarding in your post. Or find any other way to let us know what are you up to.
Next game of skate is coming tomorrow —-> Marcis vs Nesaule
Laiks ir pienācis uzzināt, kas ir Rajon Game of Skate čempions! Vakar Deda un Gaba izlozēja dalībnieku pārus. Ar katru dalībnieku tiks sarunāts spēles laiks un vieta. Kamēr ir labs laiks, varam spēlēt ārā un velēk iesim uz draudzīgajām Gtiim telpām. Plānots publicēt divas spēles nedēļā. Rekur izlozes rezultāti: