Page 154 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Estonia Latvia & Lithuania

152  LA T VIA REGION B Y REGION

experienced by deportees. The
renovated building will include
a memorial to the victims of
Communist occupation. An
exhibition has been opened in the
former KGB Building at Brīvības 61.

o Latvian Riflemen
Monument
Strēlnieku piemineklis
Strēlnieku laukums. Map 1 C4. 7
Depicting three brooding Latvian
House of Blackheads, set behind Schwab House Riflemen, this contro versial granite
sculpture has stood in the square
u House of until 2016, while renovation work bearing its name since 1970. The
Blackheads was carried out at Rīga Castle Riflemen were a unit of the Russian
(see p147). The city’s main tourist
army, formed to defend their
Melngalvju nams information office can be found homeland against Germany in
in Schwab House. 1915. Radicalized by the heavy
Rātslaukums 7. Map 1 C4. Tel 6704
4300. n Schwab House. Open for losses they suffered during
events only. ∑ melngalvjunams.lv i Museum of fierce fighting, they went on to
support Lenin during the 1917
Together with the adjoining the Occupation Revolution. Some of the Rifle men
Schwab House, the House of of Latvia later returned to Latvia, while
Blackheads is one of Rīga’s most Latvijas okupācijas muzejs others became Lenin’s most
impressive reconstruction trusted troops. Some local people
projects. It was originally built in Strēlnieku laukums 1. Map 1 C4. see the Riflemen as Latvian military
1334 for the city’s guilds, after Tel 6721 1030. Closed for renovations; heroes, while for others they recall
the Livonian Order seized the temporarily housed at Raina the repressive Soviet period.
existing guild buildings. Over bulvaris 7. & donations. 8 =
∑ occupationmuseum.lv
time, the Blackheads, a guild of p Mentzendorff
unmarried foreign merchants,
became the sole occupants. This Soviet-era concrete structure House
Their name derives from their was built to house a museum Mencendorfa nams
patron, St Maurice (who was honouring the Latvian Riflemen,
often depicted as a Moor), and but since 1993 it has provided Grēcinieku 18. Map 2 D4. Tel 6721
they were known for their a sobering account of Latvians’ 2951. Open May–Sep: 10am–5pm
riotous parties. suffering at the hands of Nazi daily; Oct–Apr: 11am–5pm Wed–Sun.
The building’s ground floor Germany in World War II and the & 8 ∑ mencendorfanams.com
housed shops, while the guild- later Soviet occu pation. The col-
hall was on the first floor. The lection includes photographs and Constructed in 1695 as the
step-gabled Dutch Renaissance eye witness accounts of deporta- premises for a glass-cutter, this
façade was added in the late tions and political represssion. The tall building got its current
1500s, the astronomical clock replica of a Gulag barracks room name from a delicatessen based
in 1622, and the Hanseatic offers an insight into the hardship on the ground floor in the early
emblems and the four figures
(Neptune, Mercury, Unity and
Peace) in 1896. Schwab House
was built to complement its
neighbour in 1891.
The Blackheads disbanded
when the Baltic Germans were
asked by Hitler to return home
at the beginning of World War II.
Both buildings were devastated
by bombing in 1941 and the
Soviet autho rities demolished
the rem nants seven years later;
the current structures date from
1999. The building served as a
temporary presidential residence Beautifully restored wall paintings in a room of Mentzendorff House
For hotels and restaurants in this region see pp300–301 and pp320–22

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