Latvia Bursts Into the Age of Rockets

The second experiment in the Racecourse of Riga

Have you ever seen a rocket-bicycle? How does that even look like? And would it even work? That sort of thing only happens in books, you might say. But you would be wrong. It’s nothing out of science fiction at all. At least it wasn’t in Latvia in 1928 where this unusual experiment caught the attention on many. However, there was nothing of the polished sheen of space novels, no sleek forms, or carbon fiber. There was not even a helmet in sight. Just two brothers with the right amount of passion and a day job that supplied them with plenty of explosives. This is a story about how two men sparked interest in new technologies. Literally.

1920s was a time of loosened social norms, bohemian lifestyle, and big cultural changes. It was also a time of new technological advances, driven by a blast of human desire to look farther, go faster, and think more innovative. It was precisely the time many great car and motorcycle races were launched, and people were exploring new ways to move vehicles forward. Naturally, Latvia could not and would not resist all these gusts of modernity and inventions. Also in terms of rocket power! But what kind of people can make dreams of such propulsion possible? Well, those who can access rockets, right? Military would be one way of thinking, but you would be wrong again. The only people back then with such a vast arsenal of this type of weaponry were fireworks experts! They did have heaps of rockets lying around their warehouse all year round. And the gold standard of fireworks experts of the interwar period in Latvia were brothers Drinki from Riga. Their father had started a workshop of fireworks back in the late 19^th century in Saint Petersburg, and now his two sons had taken over the family business turning the whole fireworks industry in Latvia into a monopoly. They did not have any competitors to speak of. If you look at any kind of big public event back then requiring fireworks – be it an important anniversary, Summer Solstice, New Years Eve, or the Independence Day – it was always Drinki brothers with their fireworks show. Newspapers wrote that their creativity at crafting the most impressive fire torches, bursts, snakes, and fountains had no limits!

But their obsession with rockets did not stop there. It spilled over into vehicles. In March 1928, the first rocket automobile was tried in Germany by Max Valier. Just 5 months later Drinki brothers rolled out their own first big rocket idea here in Latvia – a bicycle with rocket propulsion! The launch was set for 4th of August in Jūrmala. Public interest was palpable. Quite literally, because it took some shoveling through the crowd to clear a stretch of land for the experiment. Heaps of people all around the improvised racetrack were stomping the ground out of excitement to see the magical beast. And there it was! A collective gasp rippled through the crowd. Drinki Brothers rolled out their rocket bicycle. It was a very ordinary bicycle but with a very extraordinary twist – twelve rockets strapped to its rear rack in three rows, and a long fuse sticking out of this Mad Max-style rig. 

The next moment one of the innovators hopped on the bicycle and pedaled it forward couple of times to get it going. His assistant run alongside and lit the fuse. The ride into the new age could begin! One by one rockets caught flame and with angry hiss spit out a cloud of sparkles and smoke. The bicycle moved by itself! At first slowly fighting to get the inertia going, but with each next rocket bursting it picked up speed. The wind grabbed the rider’s jacket and threw it towards the rocket rack causing it to catch fire. But the rider did not care. The only thing that mattered was the experiment! It truly worked! The speedometer needle crept upward. Thirty, then fourty kilometers per hour. Then it reached 50!

Then the last two rockets detonated in unison giving the final push, and the bicycle with it’s smoking rider started to slow down and eventually stopped. That was it. The experiment was over. The rocket bicycle had covered 500 metres. A new record! Well, the very first one of its kind, at least publicly (there were talks of another innovator, but he supposedly kept it private). The crowd broke the fence and surrounded the daredevils. Journalists dig their way through the people to get comments from the innovators. To them and for the excitement of the tons of spectators around the brothers announced that there were going to be more experiments involving more types of vehicles!

And those were not just empty promises. Already a month later, the brothers strapped some more powerful rockets on a motorcycle. The test was carried out in the Racecourse of Riga. Riding the flaming beast was the famous motorcycle racer Stanislavskis. The short ride was another success, which naturally spurred the brothers on for an even more surprising idea. The next experiment had to wait for seasons to change though. The innovators wanted to try out something completely new – a rocket-sled! This time, however, it would come dangerously close to a catastrophe.

The ride took place on February 16 on solid ice. This time the person controlling the mechanical beast was the inventors’ sister. There is no mention in the newspapers why such a change of the rider was made though. The sled was dragged on the ice track, which was bordered on one side by a snowbank and on the other by a fence. The brave dame sat down on the sled, and the first six rockets were ignited. A powerful explosion followed. The sled shot forward, but not in a straight line as intended. Instead, it drew a wide arc. The next moment it struck the fence and tipped over. The remaining rockets kept exploding with a loud crash, and the crowd rushed in to help. Luckily the rider was dragged off, and suffered no injuries, except for the scare. According to the inventors, the accident was caused by the side rockets firing first, causing a sideways spin to the sled that the steering mechanism could not correct due to the slippery surface. It was decided that future tests would take place on a snow track instead.

Sergejs Drinks showing the sled to the press

So was there any continuation to this rockety road into stardom? Well, Drinki brothers kept running their family business of fireworks for the rest of the interwar period until 1941. They were always present wherever fireworks were necessary and expected. However, they seem to had lost interest in turning vehicles into science fiction beasts they loved so much before. Yes, they had been building a rocket plane as well, but the experiment never took off. Figuratively and literally. And they did some more tests for rocket use in other applications – for example, testing a new type of signal rockets for fishermen at sea. But they never returned to the daredevil days they had launched a decade earlier. And the public slowly forgot about it too. When asked about the fate of their bicycle experiment in an interview in 1938, the brothers just laughed it off. “Well, it didn’t really have any practical use, did it?”.

The frame of the rocket-plane

During World War Two, all of Drinks’ blueprints and notes were lost. While they had left Riga for the countryside, their neighbor decided to get rid of all the "suspicious" papers and threw them into the stove. Unlucky for her, the heap of the papers was hiding some rockets inside, which exploded in the flames. The lady was not injured, but learned an unforgettable lesson about tampering with other people's property. After the war, there was little demand for fireworks, and the brothers had to turn to more mundane jobs to make ends meet. They were survived by their son Valdis, who inherited their interest in chemistry and spent 30 years working at the University of Latvia.