At 8:40 p.m. in Dome Square, the first evening of Riga’s 800th-anniversary culmination began: on 17 August 2001, President Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga spoke at the opening ceremony “The Creation of Riga,” with Estonian President Lennart Meri among the guests. This was not merely a ribbon tied around Old Riga. Over three days, from 17 to 19 August, “Agency Riga 800” made the city perform its own biography through bands, exhibitions, sacred music, and vast public theatre.

Riga’s 800th-anniversary celebrations took place while the restored Latvian state was actively moving toward the European Union and NATO, and the capital was presenting itself as a historic European cultural city. The National Encyclopedia stresses that, for the first time in its history, Riga celebrated such major festivities as the capital of a sovereign Latvia.