An exhibition of photographs entitled “History of Riga city during a century, from 1914 until  2014”, which was mounted in Chisinau on October 5, shows how the capital of Latvia underwent changes through the angle of important events that took place in Europe. Latvia’s Ambassador to Moldova Atis Lots voiced hope that this exhibition will enable those who visit it to better know Riga and also Latvia and will thus contribute to bringing the Moldovans and Latvians closer, IPN reports.

The exhibit includes over 200 photos. The ambassador said that through Riga they present the history of the whole Latvian people who knew ups and downs, sad times and holidays as well as hard periods of war.

The motto of the exhibition is “Phoenix Riga” as the Latvian capital is compared with the bird Phoenix that always revives from the own ash. During a century alone, Riga went through seven periods: Tsarist Russia, German Kaiser, ‘red’ Soviet Latvia and ‘white’ Latvian Republic occupied by the USSR and Nazi Germany, a new Soviet occupation, and the period up to the restoration of independence.

Atis Lots noted that he saw how Riga became a ‘jewel city’ that reoccupied its place in the big European family and wants Chisinau, the Republic of Moldova, which is a friend of Latvia, to follow the European path as the people’s welfare can be ensured only this way.

The exhibit is housed by the National Museum of History and Ethnography, between October 5 and 20. The Museum’s vice director Aurelia Kornetski said the exhibition was already presented in several European states and, owing to the efforts made by the Embassy of Latvia in Chisinau, the Moldovan public can also learn about the history of the Latvian capital.

So far the exhibition was mounted in Spain and Switzerland.