Nothing screams Communism like a stoic figure
Riga has a 800 or so year old history but what fascinates me most are the last 70 years of it. This starts with the Soviet occupation in 1940, then Germany’s in 1941, then the Soviet’s again from 1945 until 1991.
As many as a quarter of the current population have not grown up with the pain of being under iron grip of tyranny.
Riga does much to remember it’s past with monuments and museums. There is the Museum of the Barricades, referring to the eve of freedom for Latvia in 1991. There is the Museum of Jews in Latvia, which highlights the plight of the Jews with some heartbreaking photos from the Holocaust. There is the Holocaust memorial in Bikernieki Forest, a quiet park where 40,000 ‘unwanteds’ were systematically murdered. Finally, there is the most gripping, Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.
Museum of Latvia Occupation
In a stark, cold, communist building sits the Occupation of Latvia Museum. This facility houses Latvia’s struggle against it’s oppressors beginning with Stalin in 1940 and ending when Latvia declared independence from The Soviet Union in 1991. The museum holds photographs, old communist propaganda posters and artifacts from the under 50 years of Soviet domination.
This museum is highly recommended and it is free.
Photos of Riga under communism. Very gray except for the red banners everywhere
Hankerchief with names of Jews/unwanteds at a concentration camp. These were sewn on at the camp as a remembrance.
propaganda
More propaganda comrad!
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