TILE SQUARE: RIGA VID

I have noticed over the years that there are certain standard things that happen when a foreign skate crew comes to visit Riga. If I had to make a bingo card, it be something like this: the tourists will skip some of my “good spots” I take them to; they will skate something random that I or anyone in Riga have ever considered; they’ll get kicked out of a bust free spot or will get a pass to skate a bust spot; someone will get injured, lose, or break their belongings on some stupid spot; they’ll drink the worst beer that (most) locals would’ve never bought. 

Almost all of the things in that imaginary Bingo card happened to Tile Square skateshop crew a couple weeks back when they visited Riga for the weekend. Eetu, Ville, Jukka, Anttu, Aleksi, Toni, Miro and Tuoma took an hour long direct flight from Turku to Riga and equipped with two HPXs roamed the streets for 4 days. As result they made a sick little edit and shoot some pics. 

I didn’t want to just post the vid, so we made a group chat for the crew and myself where we chatted about the trip. Emojis, and likes count for mesasges included for realism. Enjoy.

Chat Began on Thursday 4th of June 23:41

I think they are rather consistent and good looking.
Miro: He can fs flip anything

Yeah, I heard that. He’s so good at them, he’s embarassed

 [😂😂❤]

First thing I wanted to talk about is Tile Square. Tell me some facts about that place.
Eetu Hakulinen:  We opened the shop about five years ago because there had been pretty long time without proper core skate shop in Turku. Me and the other owner Jasse were talking about it time to time but when covid started we had too much free time so we decided to give a shot and tried if we could be able to do something for our city and the local skaters. Tile Square name and logo comes from these tiles we have all over city called ”Turkulaatta” local skaters have this kind of hate love relationship with those tiles. We have skate team that is built around skaters we skate with. Nothing too serious. Just a friend group skating together and having fun. Just like this Riga trip. I think this trip sums up our group really well. We did not have any plans other than go to skate and it ended up turning into a really good video and now we are doing this interview with you. [❤]

Ok, now things cleared up, I didn’t figure out that you [Eetu] was one of owners at first.

How did Riga come up on your radar? And what was the first impression like?
Jukka: I took a ferry + bus combo and I woke up when we arrived to the bus station at 5:45 in the morning and i was looking around in a grey and misty circumstances and everything looked really kinda raw in my eyes.

Sounds not fun.
Jukka: But when I reached the first park while walking towards our airbnb i really liked how the parks looked. So it gave totally different feeling of that raw first impression. Also summer’s arrival was littlebit ahead of ours so everything looked really lushious.

Lushious huh? what cool word [❤]
Jukka: Well, it was an experience I still liked having a cup of coffee as a second customer of the day in this little coffee shop at the station.

Nice, I always wonder how people decide to come to Riga. Seems like not a very popular destination. We maybe get 1 or 2 crews visiting at best during the year. But I’d guess Turku might be similar in that regard.
Eetu: In my opinion it is really fun to go to city where skate crews usually dont go. You get so much more out of it. You get to see spots that havent already appeared in 100 different videos and the locals are really friendly and hyped about that someone comes to skate in their city. Same way I feel when skaters come to Turku. [❤]

Miro: Basically it was one of the easiest destinations to travel since its a direct flight and cheap

What’s up with those red scooter things? you guys seemed to like those haha

Eetu: Hahah Miro can tell more about the scooters

Miro: 4 days of your pavements on foot and the scooters started to give me those eyes

Man, these things give a kinda dodgy vibe to me haha. What was surprisingly good in Riga to you guys? and what was surprisingly bad?

Aleksi: Strong kebab game[❤❤❤❤❤]

Eetu: 100%

Miro: I dont think there was anything bad, well maybe the alcohol prohibitions

Ville: Local skaters hospitality was a good surprice, thanks to all that we met, and a bad one was that skateshop didn’t have griptapes

Hospitality was a surprise? This is skatebaording what did you expect to happen

Ville: You guys lifted the bar high.

Thanks, glad to hear, if I come to Turku I expect even more. Ville, tell about how you went to the Michellin restaurant
Ville: So, the first day we arrived to Riga, Gaba was saying time to time that his girlfriend has a name day and it would be nice to surprise for her if some foreign skater would deliver flowers to her. I said that I can do that. Gaba gave me instructions to deliver the flowers to her work place. ”It is quite a nice restaurant where she works” Gaba said. I walked there and at the door it was written, Michelin mentioned. Oh fuck, we were skating all day, drinking some beers, I was sweaty, dirty and I was wearing a hoodie. I got upstairs and there was suitted host.  He looked at me like I was a cheap piece of meat and said, “What do you want?”. I said that I was delivering flowers to one of the workers. My heart was pumping because the place was fancy as hell. At the end I was able to give the flowers to Gaba’s girlfriend. She was positively surpriced, so it was a succesful mission. [😂😂😂]

I loved your reaction when you came back “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me it was a fucking Michellin restaurant? I am in a fucking hoodie!!!” I hear it with  a Finish accent haha

You guys skated couple of cool things I’ve never though of hitting. Like that “euro gap” of a mini bump that Ville kickflipped. Rudolfs [Henchel] was really hyped on that. Any story there?
Ville: I don’t know, I just like to jump from small bumps because not that many people are doing that. First day when I saw one of those small bumps I said to everybody that I want to find some kind of spot. Maybe over a trash bin or something like that. We passed that ”euro gab” and someone (maybe Miro?) said I should try that. Tried couple of times to ollie it with my board that had broken nose, behind the truck Then I took Jukka’s board and flipped it.

Yeah, that was a high skate iq moment which I can’t say about that hubba that went into flat that took out Aleksi and Antu’s phone what was that all about? [😂]
Miro: Haha what do you mean, that was a sick spot a bit unfortunate sesh for sure. But like Ville said, the hospitality was unlike anywhere else we have been. Your crew even blessed Anttu with a new phone and all! [👍🙏]

Yeah, Anttu is iphone’d now haha. Does he use it? Anntu send a message

Anttu: Yeah, I’m using the phone and loving the cameras on it. Although I haven’t shot any footy yet. Being on a trip without a phone opened my eyes for living in the moment, and I’ve been keeping it up by skating more for me or the videocameras and less for insta. I’m really thankful for your hospitality and I had great time there. What really impressed me was that each day you had a different tour guide for us so we got to see quite a variety of spots. [💪]

Ville: Anttu, you broke your phone on first day and still you left to party all by yourself. How did you managed to find back to our apartment without any navigation in a city that you have never visited?

Anttu: My skillset includes architecture, orienteering and asking people. I just memorized main roads and landmarks like the theatre and the monument of freedom. I didn’t even use the tourist book I had in my pocket. It was a fun experience to go full analog again. Street skaters are explorers and they naturally learn to read the fabric of cities. I usually spend a good while on the satellite view to pick areas of interest. You can learn to distinguish commercial, public, industrial or residential districts and even buildings from the top view alone. look for patterns before moving in to the street view. Also, it doesn’t hurt to be a little lost when you’re looking for something entirely new, I think I might grab a paper map again at the next airport to make it more exciting. [❤❤]

I thought you were just blacked out and randomly survived Riga but there’s a whole system, sweet. Anttu btw props for ss crook at the brick plaza, really liked that trick [😂❤]

Also, I wanted to ask about your guys’ passion for Hesburger.

Eetu: Best fastfood chain ever! It was so funny when I asked is there any place near where we could get some food and you answered ”yea there is Hesburger, its kinda like mcdonalds but maybe from Germany”. Bro it’s from Turku and it is million times better than Mcdonalds

We kind of saw it like budget mcdonalds to be honest but then i heard that mayonaise is the correct thing to but in burgers, not ketchup so I had a little respect for Hesitis (how we call it in Latvian) haha

but you guys were pro’s

Ville had an app and Jukka showed me how to get the most of sauce from the plastic container by using a credit card [😂😂]

Jukka: Hesitis

I think we all have that app. At least most of us

I went to hesitis yesterday and I thought I should take a photo for you but then I forgot

Yeah Mcdonalds is trash compared to Hesburger.

You had the screening of the vid on Monday at Tile Square, how was that?
Eetu: Yes, we had a quick screening after the shop closed on Monday. It went nice, we skated a little bit before and then went to the shop to watch the video. About 20+ people took the time to come watch it, which is pretty good on Monday evening.

Are Finish skaters generous for feedback, do people say good things st video premiere? and do they cheer during vids?
Miro: Yeah, I think they do, some more than others. Mostly its just ”good video, man ” but some people actually give more constructive feedback which is always nice to hear. Seemed like people enjoyed this one.

Which clip got the most hype?
Miro: Tuomos boardslide for sure! [🥰❤]

Nice. Any last words? anything we didn’t talk about that you would like to mention?
Miro: I dont know. But I wanna thank everyone who showed us around and kept us company, hype was up on every sesh! You guys are holding it down there real good!

Ville: Special thanks to Gaba, Niklavs and Rudolfs

https://youtu.be/oK23ki-JEjM?is=oPFt1MkK6ktQkAGj