Friendly Ragaciems border guard
As the time of change approached in Latvia, the coast guard also became friendlier.
During the Soviet era, this was the only place on the entire Latvian coast where a barbed wire fence stretched all the way to the seashore and partially into the sea. So, the only place where it was impossible to walk along the beach because of a military facility. I remember that in the late eighties (1989?) we had a high school class evening in Ragaciem. Then, with a couple of classmates, we deliberately “wandered” into the fenced-off beach area, where we were instantly “arrested” by two soldiers armed with Kalashnikov-type assault rifles. They were not aggressive, rather friendly – we took a picture together and then went our separate ways. It seems that the impending changes had also affected the attitude of the security guards towards “border trespassers”.
