The Corner House at Brīvības and Stabu streets was the headquarters of Soviet security organs in Latvia. Its former cells and the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia’s exhibition bring the machinery of political repression into an ordinary Riga city block.
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At the corner of Brīvības and Stabu streets, an imposing Riga building holds a history very different from its original purpose. Under Soviet rule the Corner House became the headquarters of security organs, known in Latvia as the Cheka. Its cells and corridors make the distance between administrative power and individual suffering painfully small.
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Quick facts
- The NKVD began using the building in autumn 1940, after the Soviet occupation of Latvia.
- The Latvian Supreme Council declared the KGB’s activities criminal and dissolved it in 1991.
- The memorial Dark Threshold was unveiled on the Stabu Street side in 2003.
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