Museum

Popular Front Museum

Riga, Latvia

Popular Front Museum — location photo

In the former headquarters of the Latvian Popular Front, this museum documents the movement and the restoration of Latvian independence. Its rooms, records and personal accounts connect political organising with the wider public movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

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During the January 1991 barricades, a small office building on Vecpilsētas iela helped coordinate people arriving in Riga from across Latvia. Former Popular Front chairman Romualds Ražuks later described a team at its headquarters arranging shifts, communicating with regional groups and dealing with supplies. The Popular Front Museum now occupies that same building, preserving the setting from which part of the work was organised.

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Quick facts

  • The building was assigned to the Latvian Popular Front in 1989.
  • The Popular Front Museum opened in 1999 and joined the Latvian National Museum of History in 2015.
  • The Popular Front supported the Baltic Way human chain in 1989.

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