How to spend a weekend in Riga

In Ratslaukums, Riga’s central square, there is an ugly brutalist building which encapsulates the contested history of Latvia’s beautiful, battered capital. This modernist eyesore was erected in 1970, when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union. It was built as a museum dedicated to Lenin’s crack troops, the Red Latvian Riflemen, who helped him overthrow the Tsar and win the resultant civil war. Without them, the Russian Revolution might have been stillborn.

Today the content of this museum is completely different. The only relic of the Latvian Riflemen is the Soviet statue in the street outside. Now this building houses the Occupation Museum, which tells the story of Latvia’s Nazi and Soviet subjugations: by the Soviets from 1940 to 1941, by the Nazis from 1941 to 1944, and by the Soviets (again) from 1944 to 1991.

It hardly sounds like a barrel of laughs, but in fact it’s surprisingly uplifting. You’re confronted by a catalogue of totalitarian brutality, but there are also numerous accounts of courage and resistance.