The Riga City Council said that this building is private property and its owners do not have to coordinate removal of signs from the facade with the municipality.
For many years, the main entrance of the building, on Alfrēda Kalniņa Street, was marked “Moscow House” in golden letters in Latvian and Russian, as well as Moscow's coat of arms.
More than ten organizations and companies are still registered in this address, including, for example, the “Russian billiards federation”, “Russian Society in Latvia”, Latvian minority association Commonwealth”, the representation of the “Moscow Center for International Cooperation”, and others.
Also the JSC “Moscow Culture and Business Centre – Moscow House” is among the companies registered on Marijas Street 7. The Firmas.lv data show that the company had a tax debt of EUR 13,519 as of July 11 this year.
The company is also facing sanctions because it is under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to data from the Land Register, the building on Marijas Street 7 is still owned by the Moscow City Department of Property, and last spring, following the war launched by Russia in Ukraine, there is a ban on seizing it and making it difficult with other rights of affairs or obligations.
The “Moscow House” was unveiled in the capital of Latvia at the end of May 2004. In honor of this event, Moscow Days took place and the then Mayor of the Russian capital Yuri Luzhkov arrived in Riga. Gundars Bojārs, the then mayor of Rīga, took part in the events.
Following Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Latvian Ministry of Justice decided to freeze the assets of the “Moscow House.” Later, there were suggestions by some politicians to nationalize the property, but these plans have not been implemented.
