Not in Riga, but in the small Finnish coastal town of Nystad, the political address of Vidzeme was rewritten on 10 September 1721. Sweden and Russia signed the peace treaty that ended the Great Northern War; Article 4 handed Vidzeme, including Riga, to Russia. For the city this was not a sudden soldier’s boot at the gate – Riga had already capitulated in 1710 – but now the change became a clause in an internationally recognized treaty.

The Treaty of Nystad legally confirmed what the war and Riga’s capitulation had already produced in practice: Swedish Vidzeme passed under the Russian Empire. At the same time, the treaty confirmed a number of earlier rights for the city, the guilds, the Lutheran church and the school system in Riga and Vidzeme.