Birth, Death & Chocolate – 11 Miera Street (Part 2)

History & Style

In the first years of the 20^th century, architects such as Mikhail Eisenstein created the opulent buildings that epitomized the Art Nouveau (or Jugendstil) style Riga is famous for. These facades were dripping with goddesses, bare-breasted nymphs, swirling plaster tendrils, flowers and mythological symbols of all kinds. The colours were a visual cacophony of blues, reds, greens and yellows. But this decadence was short lived.

In 1908, a leading architect in Vienna published an essay entitled, “Ornament and Crime”. This essay vehemently attacked the Art Nouveau aesthetic. According to Jan Brokken’s biography of Eisenstein in his book Baltic Souls, ‘…every architect worth his salt refrained from sticking a nymph on a façade from then on.’ For the next few years, architects adopted a much more reserved version of Jugendstil design.

The apartment building at 11 Miera iela is a typical example of this more conservative style. It is an impressive 7-story building built in 1910. I have not been able to identify the individual architect for this building, but it is very typical of residential architecture of this time. When it was built, the address was 7/9 Karlīnes iela. At some point in the 1930s it became just 9 Karlīnes iela and by 1937, when Karlīnes iela was renamed, it became 11 Miera iela.

Karlīnes iela 9 Tenants

Hundreds of individuals and families would have lived and worked in these apartments over the decades. By searching through old newspapers, I have uncovered a small cross-section of these tenants:

-in 1934, Karlis Endris, was arrested and fined for ‘failure to observe cleanliness in his bakery’ located at Karlīnes Nr. 9

-in the early 1930s the editor of the ‘Monthly Magazine for City and Country’, P. Bernhard, lived at Karlīnes 9 apartment 16. Members of the public were encouraged to write questions to well-known athletes that would then get published in the magazine

– in 1937, Hūgo Rudzītis of Karlīnes 9 apartment 18, advertised his services as an accountant

– in 1930, Ādolfs Smits, who lived at Karlīnes iela 9, ran over a 69-year-old woman, Tekla Timma, while riding his motorcycle. She broke both legs and an arm and died several hours after being taking to the hospital

-also in 1930, Krišs-Arnolds Ūpis and his wife Ženija-Marija, living at Karlīnes 9 apartment 21, wanted to publicly announce their surname change to ‘Straumīte’

-all throughout the mid to late 1930s a children’s Bible study class was advertised as meeting every Sunday at Karlīnes 9

Short-term Residents at Karlīnes 9/Miera 11 #20

In October 1922, Kristaps & Anna Rozenvalds moved from an old wooden building up the street at #32, to apartment #20 at Karlīnes 7/9. The couple’s adult daughters, Anna Zelma and Olga moved with them as well as their grandson, Žanis Zekants, who was the 7-year-old son of their deceased daughter, Emilija Zekants.

This must have been a nice upgrade in their living conditions. I do not know what their relationship was to the apartment. I assume they rented it. I do know that the owner of the building in the mid-1930s was someone named Grigori but I have been unsuccessful in tracking him down.

Between 1922 and 1944 the Rozenvalds family would take in many borders as well as other members of the family. Some of their borders were the following:

– Elvira Anna Ieva Andersons and her daughter Ilga who lived there from 1936 to July 18, 1938. She also lived here for some portion of 1928. She was a single mother from the village of Valtaiki. This was the location of an important family farm for the Zekants family. I assume this is someone they knew from the connection with that farm. She was also working as a seamstress like Olga.

– When the Rozenvalds moved into apartment #20 in 1922, there was a brother and sister already living there named Erna and Roberts Slokenbergs. According to the 1925 Riga address book, they were still living there in 1925. By the 1926/1927 books they had moved into apartment 19. Roberts Slokenbergs was a theology student and moved from Riga to Rūjiena (in northern Latvia) in 1929. He became a famous and well-loved Lutheran pastor there. There is even a monument to him in Rūjiena. Roberts was smuggled out of Latvia to Sweden at the start of WWII. He ended up settling in London and he founded the first Latvian Lutheran church in the UK.

Find out more about Roberts Slokenbergs here: https://timenote.info/lv/Roberts-Slokenbergs

His sister Erna was a law student and also ended up having a prominent career. I contacted the son of Roberts Slokenbergs several years ago to see if he had any family photos inside the apartment but alas, I found nothing.

– As I have mentioned in some detail in previous posts a border named Willi Droune moved into apartment #20 at the end of 1939. He ended up marrying Olga in 1940 and arranging for her and her son to flee to Germany at the beginning of Soviet occupation.

These people also lived in apartment #20 between 1938 and 1940 according to the house register in the Latvian Archives:

– Arvīds Arturs Osvalds: October 1, 1938 to March 17, 1939

-Gustavs Osvalds: October 15, 1938 to November 15, 1938

-Nikolajs Lisovskis: November 14, 1938 to March 17, 1939

-Anna Laukirbe (born Auciņš) and her son Arturs: April 3, 1939 to July 15, 1940

Rozenvalds/Zekants Family at Karlīnes 9/Miera 11 #20

In 1926, Anna Rozenvalds passed away. Then Anna Zelma got married to a Janis Berkmanis who it seems lived next door in apartment 21. Olga got married in 1927 and her new husband, Andrejs Blezurs, and Andrejs’s mother, Angrieta, moved in. Olga and Andrejs had a son, Valdis, in 1929. Then Andrejs died in 1929 and eventually Angrieta moved out. In 1935, Kristaps Rozenvalds passed away. At that point it was just Olga and her son and her nephew Žanis (my husband’s grandfather) and various borders.

The only photo we have of this apartment is a great candid shot of the family around the table ready to eat. Žanis is there as a teenager next to his grandfather, Kristaps. Kristaps is sitting next to his daughter, Anna Zelma, with an unidentified woman sitting next to her. Then we have Olga, (possibly pregnant). Next to her is her mother-in-law, Angrieta. I am guessing that Olga’s husband, Andrejs, is taking the photo. This one precious moment in time, probably in 1928 or 1929 is the only window we have into more than 20 years of life in this home.

In the late 1930s Žanis joined the Latvian army and was back and forth between postings. In 1940, Olga and Valdis fled to Germany and in March 1941, Willi Droune joined them, leaving Žanis as the last remaining family member there.

In September 1944, Žanis was serving with the Latvian Legion and was ordered to head to German-occupied Poland for some training. He only brought bare essentials of course since he thought he would be back in a month or two. It turns out that he would end up on the outskirts of Berlin at the end of the war in 1945 and would never return to Latvia. He mentions in his diary that if he had known he would never return he would have taken more of his belongings with him.

Translation of diary entry:

Wednesday November 1, 1944
It is a strange feeling to think that the home, where I lived just a few months ago, is now being robbed by the enemy. I regret that I didn’t bring anything with me, foolishly thinking, that after a month, month and a half, I’d be home. I wonder, will I ever set foot there again?

So, what happened to a lifetime of possessions left behind in apartment 20? Did the Soviets throw everything out when they took over Riga in October 1944? Were some things salvaged by Anna Zelma, who was the last family member to remain in Riga?

Like so many other stories in this time and place, possessions were abandoned, apartments were looted and memories vanished into thin air. What I wouldn’t give to be able to step inside apartment #20 in that building today and feel the ghosts of the past.