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Everything you need to become an expert on Riga's sights.
Much of the interest in a city for the tourist is the influence of it's history, so here is a very brief history of the area.
Riga, the capital of Latvia, stands on the site of a prehistoric fishing village which was once used as a stopover by foreign traders. Bishop Albert von Buxhoevden founded a German fort here in the early 13th century. It was at the southern end of the present Old Town that the first German settlements sprang up. Northern German colonists followed, and Riga grew into a major city at that time due to trade with the West and Russia, which included: furs, hides, honey and wax. It was early in the 16th century that the city first became prosperous. Like many cities of the region, it has a history of foreign capture and rule. For Riga it included Sweden, Poland and Russia, although control was still in the hands of the old German merchants and nobles. Riga grew into an important commercial city during the Russian period, it’s population increasing during the mid-seventeen to eighteen hundreds. Before the First World War, it had reached about 500,000, but had declined to just less than 200,000 by the end of it, due to the rigours of war. Riga was extensively damaged in both World Wars and for a long period during the second, Riga was occupied by the Germans, who almost totally exterminated all its Jewish community. Riga recovered dramatically after the war and became a major industrial and commercial centre of the Baltic region.
The largest city in the Baltic’s, Riga has become a centre for the arts and is also well known for it’s nightlife. See it’s Art Nouveau architecture and rebuilt historical buildings, and also it’s large, gracious parks. It has many good class hotels and eating places. There is a great deal that the tourist can see and do in Riga. Link to this page: http://riga.allcapitals.com/See/
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Serendipity totally random... 
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