[Photo from liveriga.com]

Riga Central Market offers hemp seed butter, pork snouts, belash, the Latvian drink kvass, and other interesting food. This is a place where you can haggle with the vendors, enjoy a unique shopping experience, and the architecture. You can see from afar how architecturally complementary are Railway Bridge and the vaults of the Central Market hangars or 'pavilions'. Meanwhile, the market area and the pavilions feature the liveliness of buying/selling.

Riga Central Market was opened in autumn 1930, and at that time it was the biggest and most modern marketplace in the world. Today the area is remarkable for its special atmosphere and trading process. "Please try it!" vendors give you some cheese. "For me a half of that piece, please. I'm the only person in my family who eats this, but I like it very much," says a customer. The market pavilions are the right place to find fresh and ecological food from local producers. Please pay attention to the architecture as they were converted from Zeppelin hangars. "Buy fluffy pastries here" — a notice says, and you have to try them! Those who haven't come here for shopping, could be interested in the red brick warehouses, once designed by famous European and Russian architects. One more interesting thing about the Central Market is its cellars.

Although Riga Central Market is a crowded place, it is well worth visiting at least once. Rigans visit the market often and with pleasure, holding it in great affection and calling it the city's "belly" or "stomach". The market is also a historically unique part of Riga. On 2 November 1930, when the Central Market first opened, it was the biggest and most modern in the world.

Riga City Council took the decision in 1922 to build a central food market in the city. The government bought zeppelin hangers left over from the German Kaiser's World War I armed forces. Building work got underway in 1924. Underneath the pavilions, concrete cellars were constructed — a two hectare underground city with 337 metres of passageways. In 1938, twenty-seven cold-storage rooms could hold up to 310,000 kg of goods. Three underground tunnels led to accessways on the canal bank. Overground, goods were lifted to street level using freight elevators.

During the occupation by the Third Reich, the territory of the market was used for military purposes. Two pavilions were converted into engine workshops for the Wehrmacht, while a wood storage area was set up by the outside yard for the needs of "Adam Opel".

During the Soviet period, the press praised the market as the best in the Soviet Union. The number of customers on workdays was around 50–70,000, while at weekends it reached one hundred thousand.

In 1998 the territory of the market, along with the entire Old Town, was included on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

As in every other such trading location, in Riga Central Market, just like in the narrow streets of Milan, visitors should keep a close eye on their personal valuables.