Riga about Blog

With 614,618 inhabitants in 2021 as according to the Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states, though its population has decreased from just over 900,000 in 1991.[9] Notable causes include emigration and low birth rates. According to the 2017 data, ethnic Latvians made up 44.03% of the population of Riga, while ethnic Russians formed 37.88%, Belarusians 3.72%, Ukrainians 3.66%, Poles 1.83% and other ethnicities 8.10%. By comparison, 60.1% of Latvia's total population was ethnically Latvian, 26.2% Russian, 3.3% Belarusian, 2.4% Ukrainian, 2.1% Polish, 1.2% are Lithuanian and the rest of other origins.[64]

Upon the restoration of Latvia's independence in 1991, Soviet era immigrants (and any of their offspring born before 1991) were not automatically granted Latvian citizenship because they had migrated to the territory of Latvia during the years when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union. In 2013 citizens of Latvia made up 73.1%, non-citizens 21.9% and citizens of other countries 4.9% of the population of Riga.[65] The proportion of ethnic Latvians in Riga increased from 36.5% in 1989 to 42.4% in 2010. In contrast, the percentage of Russians fell from 47.3% to 40.7% in the same time period. Latvians overtook Russians as the largest ethnic group in 2006.[6] Further projections show that the ethnic Russian population will continue a steady decline, despite higher birth rates, due to emigration.

On the eve of World War I, Riga was the Russian Empire’s third largest city, with a population of 517,000. From 1915 to 1917, however, one of the war’s front lines lay along the Daugava, resulting in heavy damage on both shores; hundreds of thousands were relocated into Russia, and 400 factories were evacuated with all their machinery, never to return.

Latvia’s independence was declared in Riga on November 18, 1918, and the city became the new republic’s capital. With the Russian border closed to eastern trade, the port’s transit role declined, but its agricultural and timber exports became the core of the national economy. Industry shifted to consumer goods, among them the world’s smallest camera, the VEF Minox. The ķegums hydroelectric power station was completed 30 miles (roughly 50 km) upstream in 1939, and domestic and international flights to Riga’s airport began in the 1920s. The University of Latvia, the Art Academy of Latvia, and the Latvian Conservatoire (now the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music) were established in 1919–22, and the Latvian Open-Air Ethnographic Museum (1924) was just one example of the repositories of national history and culture to appear in the 1920s. Public education tripled the number of municipal schools in the city, serving a diverse ethnic population with instruction in nine languages. Among Riga’s Germans was Paul Schiemann, a leader of the European minorities movement and framer of Latvia’s laws on cultural autonomy for minorities. A large community of Russian refugees made Riga a critical listening post for Western intelligence regarding the Soviet Union.