The Riga Metro which was never built
A few weeks ago I was in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and I used the metro. The Soviet metro. I’d seen similar things on Bald and Bankrupt’s videos but, in real life, Kosmonavtlar station really was one of the most impressive feats of architecture I’ve ever witnessed. It was the first time I understood something of the ‘vision’, for better or worse, of the Empire that birthed it. There was an iconography. Happily back in Riga, I wondered; why doesn’t this city have a metro? It turns out, Riga does. On paper. The “Riga Metro” was a project existent for more than twenty years, beginning in the 1970s. The last of the thirty-three stations was planned to be finished four years ago, in 2021. Of course, neither the last, nor the first, of the stations of Riga Metro were ever built. In this post, we’ll consider why that is so.
The idea is conceived
The idea for the Riga Metro emerged in the mid-1970s when the city was experiencing rapid growth. Urban planners were wrestling with how to handle the increasing traffic and population, which was approaching one million residents—the Soviet threshold for metro construction. Various solutions were considered, including upgrading the existing railway system and installing high-speed tram lines, but officials ultimately deemed these insufficient for the city’s needs.
The vision was ambitious: three underground lines with a total of 33 stations, designed to serve the city well into the 21st century. The Moscow-based Metrogiprotrans institute was commissioned to create the master plan, while local architects who had gained experience working on Moscow’s Rizhskaya station would handle the interior design of the stations.
Problems arise
The first proposed line would stretch 8.3 kilometers, connecting neighborhoods from Pleskodāle in the west to Purvciems in the east, with eight stations including four deep underground stops in the city center. The stations bore names that reflected the era: Aurora, Uzvaras (Victory), Central, and Druzhba (Friendship), each planned with the characteristic grandeur of Soviet metro architecture.
However, Riga’s unique geography presented significant challenges. The city sits on soil with high groundwater levels and migrating underground currents—conditions that made tunnel construction particularly complex. Recognizing these difficulties, the project was eventually transferred to Leningrad’s Lenmetroproekt institute, which had more experience with similar geological conditions.
These complications contributed to mounting delays. What began as a project scheduled to open in 1990 was repeatedly postponed, first to 1997, then to the early 2000s. Each delay brought additional costs and growing skepticism about the project’s viability.
At an estimated 25-26 million Soviet rubles per kilometer, the Riga Metro would have been the most expensive subway system in the USSR—nearly double the cost of the Minsk Metro being constructed simultaneously in Belarus. While Moscow would cover most expenses, the sheer scale of the investment raised eyebrows even in an era of ambitious state projects.
Local officials weren’t particularly concerned about funding initially, as the majority would come from the central government. Riga’s contribution would have been relatively modest: covering the train depot, engineering details, and station vestibules for less than 20 million rubles total.
As the 1980s progressed, the project faced increasing criticism from multiple quarters. Local scientists raised serious questions about the engineering challenges, particularly the risk of flooding given Riga’s groundwater conditions. Some argued that the planned station locations were poorly chosen and that the entire concept was becoming outdated.
More significantly, the project became entangled with broader concerns about demographic change. Many Latvians worried that large-scale construction would attract tens of thousands of additional workers from other Soviet republics to a city where ethnic Latvians had already become a minority—declining from over 60% in the 1930s to less than 36% by the 1980s.
On last feet…
Independence movements and the impending dissolution of the Soviet Union were, naturally, involved in all aspects of public and private life, including large infrastructure projects. The Riga Metro
The late 1980s brought the Singing Revolution and growing calls for independence. What had once seemed like a symbol of progress and modernity now appeared to many as an unwelcome imposition from Moscow. Environmental activists organized protests, and public opinion increasingly turned against the project.
Local specialists began taking over more of the planning work to reduce dependence on Moscow expertise, but by then, the political winds had shifted decisively. After two months of review in the final phase, the planning commission concluded there was no economic or technological basis to continue.
Final thoughts
When Latvia gained independence in 1991, the metro project was quietly shelved. The country’s population began declining due to emigration, making the need for a massive underground transport system far less pressing. Today, Riga functions well with its network of trams, trolleybuses, and buses—a modest but practical solution for a city of about 600,000 residents.
It’s beyond my expertise to comment on what “Riga Metro” would have meant to Latvia, today, had it been built. In Tashkent, the Soviet elements remain and are even cherished. One imagines universal acceptance of such a relic would be unlikely in Riga.
I made a recent post about a statue from another Empire which once occupied Latvia; the Statue of Peter the Great, now in Jūrmula. What deserves a presence in public space is a question which every country and every citizen must answer for themselves. I’ll reserve myself to noting that, instead of ‘следующая остановка’, it’s ‘Nākamā pietura’ on the way to school, in the morning.
Увидимся скорo!
Laef, currently studying Russian at Liden & Denz Riga
