The Corner House — Attraction in Riga

It is surprising that such a beautiful Art Nouveau tenement house housed the place of torture and murder of the Stalinist regime. ⭐️The Corner House was originally intended to be a residential building with shops, a library and a pharmacy on the ground floor. Eventually, deep inside this building in the heart of Riga, thousands of Latvians were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured and executed until 1991 by the KGB. 😟 We got to know this place thanks to a documentary about Russian oppositionists who survived torture in similar prisons in Russia. Indeed, you can feel this specific atmosphere from the moment you open the small door of the tenement house. The bars, the KGB sign, the officers' box, and the mailbox where people sent inquiries about imprisoned or missing relatives, made requests and - much more sinister - reported people "disloyal" to the Soviets. 'For good morning' detained persons were photographed, their fingerprints were taken and their personal belongings were buried. Then they were sent to the dark cells for three days - a cell without windows, the size of one and a half meters‼ ️ After that time, the prisoners were sent to larger, but unfortunately very crowded cells. The Soviets like to turn up the heating and it was hot all year round. The lights were on day and night, and the small windows, if any, were shaded to prevent prisoners from seeing outside. The beds were metal with no mattresses and the toilet was just a bucket in the corner. For 30 peasants a 5 liter bucket, emptied once a day‼ ️ Originally there were 60 cells, 16 are available. Maybe it's just your imagination, but this place is full of ghosts. When entering the cells, the hair stands up on the body. The smell of damp is ubiquitous. The interrogation room, on the other hand, still smelled of cigarettes. The prisoners had no rights‼ ️

......... "There have been many kinds of torture," explained the guide. From beating your whole body, hitting particularly sensitive body parts, smoking, pulling hair out, to insomnia and continuous questioning for 8-9 consecutive days. "The effectiveness of terror does not lie in the terror itself, but in its mixture" ......................

🤔 Prisoners could go to the yard for about half an hour a day with other prisoners from their own cell. The courtyard is a narrow space between buildings, covered with bars and a fence, which is essentially a cage with a bit of natural sunlight shining through the bars if you were lucky. 'Passing through the courtyard of the building, we entered the garage where the executions took place. Throughout the entire period of the KGB's existence, hundreds of people stood in front of this wall waiting for bullets. The blood from the floor was washed off with water and the bodies were packed on a car and taken to the forest. Yellow stains mark the remaining bullet holes. It is a pity that there is no museum in Poland where time has stood still. After all, all the exhibits are original. Perhaps then, all skeptics and opponents of helping Ukraine would understand that they would never want to find such a place in the hands of a Russian swołoczy ️ It is worth adding that in 2018 Latvia released secret KGB files along with the names of agents...

1 | A museum focusing on the KGB, political prisoners and the occupation of Latvia by Germany and the Soviet Union. The museum is located in the building that for many decades housed the headquarters of the Latvian branch of the KGB. 2 | If you have a little time, I definitely recommend a tour of the building. It is worth remembering what the Soviet regime was like and what practices are still common in Russia today. 3 | There is a free tour of the main exhibition, which consists of several panels with stories of prisoners and victims of the communist regime. A guided tour costs 10 euros, students pay 4 euros (July 2023). I recommend going on the paid tour, the experience is very intense. You will visit the prisoners' cells, the interrogation room, the kitchen and the room where the prisoners were executed. I have to appreciate the narration of the guide, he spoke interestingly, funny at times and has perfect English. The guided tours take place several times a day in groups of 10-15 people. There is a great demand for them, so I recommend to buy tickets early via the Internet. 5 The length of the guided tour is about 1 hour, you will need another 20 minutes if you want to read the information panels with stories and photos of the prisoners. 6 | The building is easily recognizable from the outside. It is easily accessible on foot from the historic centre of Riga, or by tram to the Ģertrūdes iela stop. From there it is a 7-minute walk to the museum. 7 | The tour of the building is not suitable for younger children. The cells and the execution room may have a depressing...

This was a rather unfortunate waste of time and money. I have bought the ticket for the guided tour, and arrived at the Corner House 2 minutes later than the start time of the tour. I asked at the office where I can join the tour, and was told to go to the main room and wait for the group. I went to the main room where there were 3-4 other people, so I thought that we should take a look at the exhibition and the movie before the tour starts. I looked around, and then sat down to watch the movie. Now, 20 minutes passed since I entered the main room, and I saw some new people entering, but no guide. So I went to the office again to ask when the tour will start. They were surprised to see me again, and then it turned out that the tour guide already has taken the group out of the main room before I arrived, so now I missed around 25 minutes of the tour. The person from the office apologised saying that they did not count the number of people that started the tour. Given that I would not visit this museum without the guided tour, this is very disappointing. Also, I have read in the previous reviews that this same situation happened to other people before, so I don't understand why it is so hard for the staff from the office to simply accompany the people to the guide and make sure that the people have...