Explore Latvia's Haunting Former KGB Base: The Corner House

Inside the Corner House: Latvia’s haunting former-KGB base Riga has become one of Europe’s fastest-growing tourist destinations, a fun, vibrant city with great bars and beautiful scenery, but like most countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, there’s also plenty of dark tourism spots to discover. The nation’s Soviet past has cast a long shadow on the city, and there’s no greater example of that than the Corner House, a must-visit if you’re in Riga, just be prepared for a haunting experience. The Corner House, known as Stūra māja in Latvian, was once the regional headquarters for the KGB, the feared security and intelligence agency that caused terror across the Soviet Union and further afield, until 1991, when it was replaced and rebranded by the FSB and SVR. A lot of the most well-known work from the KGB comes from their espionage and foreign intelligence gathering that was done overseas, but arguably their biggest and most terrifying goddamn job was the internal security and surveillance of the population, ensuring that political opposition was crushed and that nobody dared to question the regime. Known as the Corner House, thanks to its location on the corner of Brīvības iela and Stabu iela in the heart of Riga, and from the outside, it’s one of those nondescript fucking buildings, blending into the nearby architecture, but inside, it’s anything but, because it was built to accommodate flats in the upper floors and shops on the ground floor, sitting on what was then Lenin and Friedrich Engels street. This changed in 1940 when the country was occupied by the Soviets as part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, with the NKVD, a forerunner to the KGB, taking over the buildings. The apartments and shops, such as the pharmacy, bookshop and music school, were converted hastily into offices, prison cells and interrogation rooms. Barring three years of Nazi occupation from 1941 to 1944, in which the occupiers used the building, it spent around 50 years acting as a base to terrorise locals and commit some of the Soviet Union’s darkest deeds. Windows were blacked out, fencing and barbed wire put over the courtyard, and it was made impossible for anybody to view inside the building, or to leave. Across its lifespan, the building saw thousands of Latvians arrested, interrogated, beaten and tortured, and in some cases executed on site, all under the accusation of “anti-Soviet activities.” Fearing the opposition, the KGB attacked intellectuals and anybody who breathed a word against Joseph Stalin. As well as violence, the Corner House was often the first point of deportation, with many stripped of their rights and shipped like cattle to remote areas of the Soviet Union, from Siberia to Kazakhstan to gulags. Families were torn apart, with most not knowing what happened to their parents, children, cousins or friends. Many of them still don’t. Surveillance was also undertaken in the building with phones and buildings tapped, as KGB operatives listened in, waiting for anybody to slip up. This reign of terror continued throughout the nearly five decades of Soviet rule, and even after independence was declared, there were still people afraid to whisper the name of the Corner House. In 2014, as part of Riga’s role as European Capital of Culture, the museum was opened, turning what had become a neglected building into an educational space to teach young Latvians about tyranny, and visiting the Corner House is an essential part of any trip to Riga, because it’s damn-near impossible to understand the modern city without understanding its cold, violent past. The tours are terrifying, as articulate guides usher you through prison cells, eerie corridors and interrogation rooms, giving you a flavour of life in Soviet-Latvia. It’s haunting, melancholy and frankly, a little scary, a reminder that free speech should be treasured and that repressive regimes cannot be tolerated. Now the building stands as a powerful symbol, a memorial to the victims of the KGB and an educational tool to help visitors understand the mechanisms of Soviet repression. If you’re in Riga, then you need to visit this ordinary house on the corner of Brīvības iela and Stabu iela, which shines a light on Latvia’s struggle for freedom.