e's ass'mo koo a koo t'arps

// i am a woodworm (Latvian)

Moving on from Riga after only a couple of nights, we made our way to Liepaja which is Latvia's biggest rock music town, churning out a number of Latvia's most popular bands. The purpose of our visit was the nearby Karosta Prison, a former Soviet military prison where tourists can pay to be treated like a prisoner and in summer, can stay the night in the cells. I'd read about it and was terrified at the prospect ‑ it sounded fairly harrowing and the guy working in our hostel said his friends had been reduced to tears of terror. Naturally, I had to do it! Taro has a similar adventurous spirit so he was hooked, and so began our time in tandem.

At 9pm we got off the bus in Liepaja and made our way through the quiet town to the hostel. A thick mist languished in the cold air. It shrouded the street lamps in a pale glow and muted the sounds of life, parting only to allow the screams of small children to waft to our ears. (We assume they were playing). Our hostel had a very haunted house feel to it and we had it to ourselves, so we grabbed some burgers and watched a movie before crashing.

The mist still lingered in the morning but this time it was a pretty complement to the thick frost that covered the ground like snow. We jumped on the bus to Karosta, wondering what to expect.

In Karosta we were taken to the prison entrance by a kind bus driver, where we stood for an age with frozen toes until one of our guards arrived. He spoke some French, Taro spoke some French, I used my Italian to understand the conversation but was unable to take part. We were invited by the kindly guide (who's job in a few more minutes was to be our tormentor) into his car, where it was warm. We waited there with him, chatting about various things in broken French until our other guards arrived, decked out in proper Soviet uniforms and yelling at us.

We were made to squat on the ground before waddling into the prison grounds with our hands on our heads. Lots of yelling in Latvian ensued, with some French aimed our way as it was the best lingual compromise (it seems I can understand French now, not sure when that happened). There were pushups on the freezing ground with no gloves on, but as we were with a school group it was only the school kids who had to do it. The Aussie tourists were a bit of a tag‑along so we hung about on the edge clutching our English audio guide.

After the discipline session, there was a history lesson in Latvian while we stayed in a squatting position on the ground (we still had the audio guide but we wanted to get a feel for the place). We were pushed around, told off, forced to stand in the cold and then taken into a room containing a stern nurse and lots of scary looking implements. We were quizzed on our health and told off for not having listened to the audio guide yet, then sent outside to stand with our hands on our heads, facing the wall, waiting.

A guard collected us and took us to the interrogation chamber. In real Soviet times, this was where the sleep deprived prisoners would have been tortured. For us, it was a simple interview.
"I see you are Australian. Why are you in Latvia?"
"For a holiday."
"What? WHY are you in Latvia!?"
I laughed and the guard smiled, then asked in great detail about my drinking habits before taking us to a pitch black cell and slamming the door behind us.
Finally we had time for the audio guide, so we stood in silent, cold darkness and listened to tales of the prison's grim history.

The door was suddenly thrown open, a fellow tour group member was thrust inside and the door was slammed shut again. This was the most poignant moment of the tour; in this particular prison the inmates were all military people who knew what they had done wrong, but in other Soviet prisons there would have been a lot of terrified silences and a lot of unanswered questions. We stood quietly until the room gradually filled up with other school kids who naturally started to giggle and whisper. Moment lost.

After a few more cell visits, a ghost story and some time to contemplate the words and symbols scratched into the walls by prisoners, we were let out, subdued but a little disappointed that the scary Soviet challenge was so easily overcome. I imagine that with a more serious tour group it would have been a far more gruelling experience.

The frost, the barbed wire, the still‑standing guard towers, Karosta wasn't terrifying but it's certainly nothing to be laughed at.