Why go
The founding story adds depth to an Old Town walk: Riga began with a river port, craft work and trade before it became a bishop’s city. Looking toward the Daugava from the old streets helps explain why this location mattered to both local residents and newcomers.
The full story
The Daugava was a route to the Baltic long before Riga received its familiar founding date. Archaeological finds around today’s Rātslaukums and nearby streets point to twelfth-century communities of Livs and Kurs. Their work included fishing, trading and crafts in wood, bone, amber and iron. The river linked those activities to routes farther inland. German merchants began visiting in the late twelfth century. Missionaries followed, including Meinhard, who worked among the Livs upstream at Ikšķile. His mission and the later crusades were part of a struggle for religious and political control, not the start of settlement on an empty site. Bishop Albert’s arrival in 1201 became the conventional founding moment for the medieval city. It began a new phase of German ecclesiastical authority and merchant trade. In Old Town, the relationship between the river, the former market area and the early church centre is more revealing than the single date alone.