The Riga History and Shipping Museum, located in Old Riga right next to the Cathedral Church, is one of the oldest museums in Europe. It is currently in critical condition. It has a leaky roof, a collapsing ceiling, the water supply needs to be repaired every other day, but the Ministry of Culture lacks money to maintain the museum, reports the TV3 program “Neka peresika”. The Ministry of Finance, on the other hand, has refused help to save the museum, which is in critical condition.
In one of the archive rooms on the upper floor, the ceiling has sunk, this happened because the wooden roof structures in the attic were deformed. A year ago, the commission of the Riga City Council inspected the museum. They have concluded that one of the facades of the museum’s courtyard is in such bad condition that it is on the list of objects that degrade the environment, so this year the Riga municipality has to pay an increased real estate tax – 42 thousand euros. The main value of the museum – the collection is mostly kept in rooms that do not correspond to it. With bad or no ventilation created in the Soviet years. In many places, the workplaces of employees are also squeezed between the shelves of hundred-year-old fossils. Which is against any vault standards. Some exhibits are kept in refrigerators, which is also not a suitable way, but there are no other cold showcases.
As the program notes, the condition and wear and tear of the museum building has already reached about 40%, which can be described as unsatisfactory. The Ministry of Culture has requested money for the next three years both for the repair of the museum – a total of almost 3 million euros, and also for money that would allow concluding a lease agreement. This would require another 394,200 euros per year. But the answer of the Ministry of Finance was laconic – “taking into account the limited possibilities of the state budget, the requests were not supported”.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Culture Agnese Logina emphasizes the importance of the dialogue: “It worries me a lot. That’s why I’m glad that this conversation has started, because it’s really dramatic. We’re talking about the core of our nation and the understanding of who we are as a nation, as a country we are. If we cannot take care of our museums, archives, libraries, we will have very big problems with our identity in the long term.”
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