Built during the industrial boom at the beginning of the 20th century, the Corner House was originally commissioned as a stack of luxury apartments for the newly wealthy. The façade bore all the trendy trappings of the Art Nouveau movement that swept across the European continent. It was so beguiling that the Latvian government purchased the building in the 1920s and transformed it into offices for the Ministry of the Interior.
When the Soviets barged into Latvia in 1940, the NKVD (Narodnyy Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del in Russian, the predecessor of the KGB) co-opted the ministry, enlisting the Latvian officials to do their bidding in the ultimate act of governmental puppetry.
Privy to the grand totalitarian plans laid out by Moscow officials, General Ludvigs Bolšteins—head of the Latvian Border Guard—decided to commit suicide instead of abetting the enemy in the destruction of a free Latvia. He shot himself at his desk on the fifth floor of the Corner House, leaving a note warning others of the atrocities to come.