Another great article found in the Internet related to nightlife in Riga. If you are going to visit Riga - read it!

“…The poster at Riga International Airport is certainly graphic: A blow-up doll in mini-dress stands behind the slogan: ‘Sex tourism? Sex terrorism.’ The campaign - sponsored by the airport and more than 20 other businesses - isn’t aimed at the foreign visitors who pack the bars of Riga. The target is the supposedly lax morals of some Latvian women who might be tempted to sleep with foreigners. `Its goal is stopping the nonchalance toward this problem, as well as raising the self-esteem of the society and younger woman in particular, by making one think about whether it’s worth to have a one-night stand for a glass of cocktail,” says the Web site of the nongovernmental Re!Action organization.

That’s all right then. I headed toward the night spots of Old Riga, which is awash with stories of tourists being ripped off in clip joints. The smartest thing is to step right past the touts with their promises of hot women and cold beers and head for venues that are popular with Latvians and welcome foreigners.

Lounge 8 is one of the most fashionable venues in the city. Most of the action is in a long upstairs room, with tables and palm trees around the side and a bar in the middle, where mostly female customers - immaculately dressed and made up - chat with handsome barmen, including a surfer dude, dressed in black. It’s a very good-looking crowd and the place is laid-back and friendly.

The cocktail list is tempting enough, but it’s also fine to drink beer. Lounge 8 isn’t snooty. Asian and Mediterranean food is served. One of the joys of going out in Riga is that smoking is banned, but Lounge 8 also has an outside terrace in the summer.

Fevered

For a rather more fevered atmosphere, Pulkvedim Neviens Neraksta is a nightclub on two floors and has loads of character. The name, which translates as “Nobody Writes to the Colonel,” comes from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel.

If the sex campaign had particular venues in mind, this might be the kind of place, because the dancing can be quite raunchy. Different types of music are played on different nights. When I was there, it was R&B night, with videos from the likes of Missy Elliott and Snoop Dog, as well as one from the Latvian rapper Gustavo that was filmed on the dance floor at Pulkvedim.

My guide, a Riga resident, told me the clubbers were all Latvians. For some reason, I was inappropriately carrying a biography of Gordon Brown and was accosted at that point by a Scottish woman attending a hen party who wanted to know why.

Loud

Another club/disco that is popular with Latvians, and the occasional Scot, is the nearby Orange Bar. This is a much smaller place with tables and a bar and a raised dance floor. It’s less frenetic than Pulkvedim, but again the music is loud, so it isn’t the kind of place you’d go for a quiet beer after dinner.

There are two bars atop hotels that are worth a visit for the view, if nothing else. Star Lounge, at the 11-story Albert Hotel, even has an outside terrace bolted onto the side of the building, where you can admire Riga or peer down at the street below. The hotel looks Soviet and sits uncomfortably among old buildings.

Over the road is the Bites Blues Club, where you can catch live music or just have a beer and a hamburger or a steak. It’s laid-back and off the main tourist trail.

At the nearby Reval Hotel, you reach the Skyline bar on the 26th floor via a panoramic lift. There’s not a lot to recommend the bar apart from the view. There’s a cocktail list, though I stuck with Latvian Champagne - fizzy wine with a cherry.

Dolls

I stopped off for a drink at Dolls, which bills itself as “the most prestigious club in Baltic states” and promises an “artistically refined show, and it does not have even a slightest trace of vulgarity.” Thank goodness. Once I’d paid my 15 lati ($29.35) admission, and 6 lati for a beer, I found myself in a large room with a bar at each end and a stage in the middle.

Very little was happening, except for the bored-looking women trying to persuade me, and about four other customers, to buy them drinks. I beat a hasty retreat and on my last night in Latvia found myself roaming the streets of Riga. Spotting a small crowd, I ended up in somewhere called Riga Old Town Hostel.

A large beer cost 1 lat. After the desolation of Dolls, the hostel was a hoot. A guy sat on the bar playing the guitar while drinkers chatted and flirted as young people do. Is that what the sex tourism-sex terrorism campaign seeks to curb? What a loss…”

By Bloomberg