Daugavgrīva Fortress: A Baltic Defensive Stronghold in Riga, Latvia
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Latvia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Russian, Swedish
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Fort
On this page20 sections
History
Daugavgrīva Fortress is a historic military complex in Riga, Latvia, developed by successive medieval, Swedish, Russian, and Latvian authorities from the site’s foundation beside the Daugava. Its origins lie in the thirteenth century, while the present fortress grew from a new fortification built in 1608 at the river’s later mouth. For centuries, the stronghold controlled navigation, protected Riga from attack by sea, and served as a military prison, naval base, and fortified defense area.
Monastery and Livonian Order castle
The site’s history began after Albert of Buxhoeveden founded Riga in 1201. A Cistercian monastery was established at the mouth of the Daugava and was named Dünamünde, meaning “mouth of the Daugava.” The monastery included a castle, which was destroyed in 1228 by Curonian and Semigallian forces.
On either 23 March or 26 May 1305, the bishop of Riga and the Cistercian abbot sold the castle to the Livonian Order and its master, Gottfried von Rogge. The Livonian Order was a medieval Catholic military organization that controlled extensive territories in the eastern Baltic. After the sale, the monastery moved to Padise in present-day northwestern Estonia, while the order rebuilt and fortified the castle.
Known as Alt-Dünamünde, the rebuilt castle became the center of the Dünamünde Commandery, an administrative district of the Livonian Order. Its strategic value later declined after the Daugava formed a new mouth around 1567. The old castle remained by the former channel, while military attention shifted toward the new outlet.
Swedish and Polish struggles
A new fortification was established near the new river mouth during the Polish-Swedish wars, a series of conflicts over territory and influence in the Baltic region. On 1 August 1608, Swedish forces commanded by Count Frederick Joachim von Mansfeld captured Dünamünde Castle. On the opposite bank, at the junction of the Daugava and Buļļupe, they built a quadrangular star fort called Neumünde, or “new mouth.” Its position allowed it to control shipping on both the Daugava and the Lielupe.
Polish forces under Chodkiewicz captured the new fort in 1609. Sweden briefly recovered it in 1617, but Polish forces led by Radziwiłł and Chodkiewicz, with support from Riga, retook the position and expelled the Swedes. Gustav II Adolf’s Swedish expedition then captured Riga, Dünamünde, and Neumünde in 1621.
The retreating Polish forces damaged the fort. Gustav II Adolf inspected it in 1624 and ordered its reconstruction. A truce concluded in 1628 confirmed Riga and Neumünde as Swedish possessions, while the older Dünamünde Castle had by then lost its strategic importance.
Expansion under Swedish rule
In 1641, General Rothenburg directed the rebuilding of Neumünde as a Dutch-style pentagonal bastioned fortress. A bastion is a projecting fortification, usually pentagonal, designed to provide flanking fire along adjoining walls. In 1670, Swedish authorities decided to enlarge the work into a six-bastion fortress, following a design associated with Marshal Vauban, the French engineer whose system shaped early-modern European fortification.
Beginning in 1680, the old Dünamünde Castle was dismantled and its building materials were carried to the newer fortress. The expanded stronghold consequently adopted the name Dünamünde. Bible translator Johann Ernst Glück lived there from 1680 to 1683.
Russian conquest and military prison
Dünamünde changed hands during the Great Northern War, the conflict of 1700 to 1721 in which Russia and its allies challenged Sweden’s Baltic possessions. Saxon forces captured the fortress in 1700, but Swedish forces retook it in 1701. During the Russian siege of Riga, Russian troops commanded by Field Marshal Boris Sheremetev blockaded the fortress from April 1710. Hunger and a plague epidemic forced its commandant, Carl Adam von Stackelberg, to surrender in August of that year.
The fortress remained under Russian rule after the Treaty of Nystad in 1721. Peter I, also known as Peter the Great, visited it in 1711 and 1721 and ordered improvements. Major de Colling, appointed the fortress’s first Russian engineer in 1712, strengthened its defenses, and Colonel Kropotov became its first Russian commandant in 1729.
The fortress was placed on a war footing in 1738 because of expected political complications surrounding Ernst Johann von Biron’s appointment as Duke of Courland. It was prepared again in 1741 during the war with Sweden.
From the early 1740s, the stronghold also served as a political prison. On 13 December 1742, the deposed infant Emperor Ivan VI, his mother Anna Leopoldovna, and his father Anton Ulrich of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel were transferred there. Ivan was confined in the central powder tower until 31 December 1743, when he was sent to Kholmogory. His parents were transferred to Ranenburg.
Harbour works and nineteenth-century defenses
Under Catherine II, the fortress was modernized. The Orthodox Church of the Transfiguration was built for the Russian garrison between 1773 and 1776, replacing a wooden Orthodox church erected in 1735.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, sediment had shifted the sea and river nearly one kilometre from the fortress. A proposal dated 1784 called for new Riga port moles opposite the stronghold, but improved dredging of the Daugava made the project unnecessary. Comet Fort was built on the coast of the Gulf of Riga in 1765, and a dam linking it with the fortress was constructed between 1783 and 1788. The dam and the deepening of Dünamünde harbour were completed in 1808. The harbour was deepened again in 1851 and adapted for winter berthing.
A telegraph line reached the fortress in 1852, the first in Russia and in Eastern Europe. In 1855, its batteries repelled attempts by British ships to enter the Daugava. Bridges connecting the fortress to its ravelins were built in 1863, and the first artesian well was dug in 1864. Water was reached at a depth of 175 feet, about 53 metres. From 1871, the Ostesdambis-Riga railway accelerated the transfer of cargo from large vessels that could not navigate the shallow river.
Reorganization and Ust-Dvinsk
In 1887 and 1888, the fortress administration was reorganized under a unified headquarters. The engineering and artillery branches, which had previously operated with considerable independence in training and specialist work, were placed under the commandant’s authority. Major General Moisey Domoradsky became the first commandant with this expanded authority, and Colonel Dagaev became the first chief of staff.
The fortress was renamed Ust-Dvinsk in 1893. After Emperor Nicholas II visited in 1910 and General Ya. G. Zhilinsky inspected it in 1911, a major modernization program began in 1912. The work was directed by a construction committee headed by Lieutenant General Ivan Mionchinsky.
The modernization created an extensive fortified area that reached beyond the older defenses and extended across both banks of the Daugava. Completed before the First World War, it was intended to protect Riga from attack by sea, including a possible assault by the German fleet.
First World War and the destruction of 1917
At the outbreak of the First World War, the garrison prepared the artillery, cleared firing lines, laid minefields in the Daugava mouth and at sea, and established additional observation posts. The Gdov Infantry Regiment reinforced the garrison, and thirteen Latvian companies were formed there in 1914. The first Latvian rifle formations were subsequently organized at the fortress in 1915. Latvian riflemen were military units formed within the Russian Army during the war, beginning with a battalion established at Daugavgrīva before the formations expanded.
Ust-Dvinsk supported the defense of Riga during the war. After the German offensive began near Ikšķile on 19 August 1917, Russian forces withdrew. On 20 August, Mionchinsky received orders to abandon the fortress. Within roughly one day, the garrison destroyed the forts, fifteen external batteries, the arsenal, and the powder magazines. German forces then occupied the site.
Latvian independence and later military use
During the Latvian War of Independence in 1919, the fortress changed hands several times. Soviet Latvian forces occupied it on 3 January, Latvian national forces captured it on 23 May, Bermondt’s forces took it on 11 October, and Latvian troops retook it on 15 October. Bermondt’s forces continued shelling the fortress and Bolderāja until 5 November.
After Latvia established independence, Ust-Dvinsk was renamed Daugavgrīva Fortress and housed Latvian Army units. Soviet naval forces took over the complex in 1940. During the Soviet period, it served naval functions, including as a base for a minesweeper division and submarine formations. Russian troops withdrew in 1993.
An attempt was made in 1947 to blow up a seventeenth-century powder magazine. In 1983, the fortress was declared an architectural monument of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, although that decision was later annulled and the site remained under military control.
Transfer to Latvia and conservation
On 31 August 1993, Russian forces left the fortress and transferred it to Latvia’s armed forces. A proposal in the mid-1990s to use the site for a port terminal was rejected by the State Inspection for the Protection of Cultural Monuments. In 1995, the Latvian Cabinet of Ministers designated Daugavgrīva Fortress a state monument of architecture.
Since 1999, the complex has been leased for forty-nine years to the restoration and construction company Aumeisteru muiža, which has undertaken restoration work. In the early 2000s, parts of the protected area were transferred to the Freeport of Riga and to Latvia’s naval forces. Daugavgrīva Fortress is now recognized as a monument of national significance, and part of its territory forms part of the customs territory of the Republic of Latvia.
Remains
Daugavgrīva Fortress occupies a peninsula formed by the Gulf of Riga and the Buļļupe branch of the Daugava. The early Dünamünde Castle stood beside the former river mouth, while the later fortress was built by the new mouth on the opposite bank. The surviving complex combines a seventeenth-century bastioned enclosure, Russian-period buildings and defenses, and the remains of the extensive pre-1914 fortified area. It survives as a ruin, with many external works destroyed during the abandonment of 1917.
Swedish bastioned fortress
Bastioned enclosure
The original Neumünde fort of 1608 was a quadrangular star fort. It was rebuilt in 1641 as a pentagonal bastioned work and redesigned from 1670 as a six-bastion fortress. Dolomite was used in the construction, together with material taken from the dismantled old castle. The completed Swedish fortress included six bastions, five detached ravelins with glacis, casemates and powder magazines within the curtain walls, and stone revetments that replaced earlier earthen slopes.
The six bastions were named Morgen Stern, Süder Stern, Cowachen, Abend Stern, Süder Sonne, and Nordpohl. Some defensive works were open, while others were arranged on two levels. The fortress also contained a two-storey barracks and a small church. In 1624, before the later expansion, the fort held twenty-one guns, six barracks, several houses, and a church measuring fourteen by four fathoms.
Church of the Transfiguration
The Church of the Transfiguration stood in the center of the fortress and was built between 1773 and 1776 for the Russian garrison. It replaced the wooden Orthodox church erected in 1735. The church tower was later converted into a water tower, linking the building to the fortress’s changing military infrastructure.
Harbour connections and water supply
Comet dam
A dam constructed between 1783 and 1788 connected the fortress with Comet Fort on the coast of the Gulf of Riga. The dam and the deepening of Dünamünde harbour were completed in 1808. Further harbour work in 1851 adapted the basin for winter berthing, while the surrounding river and sea channels continued to shape the fortress’s military and commercial functions.
Artesian well and ravelin bridges
Bridges connecting the fortress to its ravelins were built in 1863. The first artesian well followed in 1864, reaching water at a depth of 175 feet, approximately 53 metres. These works formed part of the nineteenth-century improvements to movement and water supply within the fortified complex.
Twentieth-century fortified area
Gun batteries and magazines
The modernization carried out before the First World War added six batteries armed with six-inch Kane guns manufactured by the Obukhov works, together with ammunition stores. Three batteries with 5.5-inch Vickers guns were placed farther inland. On the right flank at Mangaļsala, two batteries received 10-inch, or 254-millimetre, Obukhov guns.
New forts and three additional six-inch batteries were built behind the defensive ramparts on the left bank of the Daugava. Reinforced casemates provided protected accommodation for the garrison, while reinforced-concrete ammunition magazines and underground telephone cables strengthened the modernized defensive system. New officers’ quarters were also added.
River and coastal defenses
The mine facility was moved to the right bank, and ten motorboats replaced the mine flotilla’s rowing boats to improve communication across the Daugava. During the First World War, the approaches were protected by as many as fifteen rows of barbed-wire obstacles, a dam across the Hapaka-Grāvis channel, flooded meadows at Spilve, and additional field batteries at Bolderāja.
The maritime defenses were planned to withstand bombardment and a prolonged siege. Shallow water in the Daugava restricted the approach of heavily armed ships, while minefields were intended to protect the river mouth. These later defenses extended the fortress far beyond the older Swedish enclosure and formed part of the wider system that guarded Riga from the sea.
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