30/04/2023
An excellent trading location by the seaside and along the river, Riga was founded by the Germans from Lübeck and Bremen. The last pagans of Europe were then living as tribes, worshiping nature, and the Germans brought Christianity during their Baltic crusades of 1201. They then ruled for 200 years with the Hanseatic league before Poland and Lithuania took over as a Catholic union. In the 1600s, the Swedes conquered and stayed for a century. In 1710, the tsar Peter the Great started ruling and Latvia was part of the Russian empire until 1914. In 1918, it declared its independence. It did not last for long as in 1940, the Soviets took over until 1990, but for the 1941-1944 N**i Germany period. In 1990, Latvia became independent at last.
