Why go
The period explains the larger city around Old Town: industry, growing population and new civic life stretched Riga beyond its medieval core. It also connects the visible nineteenth-century streets with the Latvian National Awakening, rather than treating architecture as a list of styles.
The full story
Russian rule began after Riga’s capitulation in 1710. Over the following centuries the city remained a port, then grew rapidly as industry developed. By the late nineteenth century, factories and commerce had made Riga one of the Russian Empire’s major industrial centres. Its expanding urban area reached well beyond the old fortified town. Political power and language did not change at the same pace. Baltic Germans held influential positions for much of the period, and German remained the language of city administration until Russian was imposed in 1891. Meanwhile, Latvians became a larger part of the urban population and formed their own civic institutions. The Riga Latvian Association was founded in 1868, and the first national song festival followed in 1873. Industrial growth also brought labour politics and unrest, including the events of 1905. Seen together, the city’s later streets, cultural institutions and working districts reflect economic expansion alongside competing ideas about who should govern Riga.