Evacuation of Riga's Industry during the First World War

The article is devoted to the analysis of the issue of the evacuation of Riga's industry during the First World War, where the main goal is to try to recreate the most complete picture of the development of events in the region during the war. The lack of preliminary plans to prepare for the evacuation of industrial facilities led to its spontaneous nature of forced evacuation, which revealed problems with the overall management of the process, the lack of impact mechanisms, as well as the issue of competent interaction between military and civilian leadership on the ground. The article examines in detail the legislative framework and organizational aspects of evacuation, analyzes the correspondence and memoirs of contemporaries who directly participated in the preparation for the war and evacuation. Special attention is paid to the fate of some of the largest enterprises in the region — from evacuation to re-evacuation, nationalization or termination of their activities. As a result, it is concluded that despite all the difficulties encountered, it was possible to evacuate a significant part of the production facilities to the regions of the Russian Empire. The evacuation had a serious impact on the further development of the region and affected the socio-economic processes of the Russian Empire.