The story
Welcome to Jauniela, a street whose name translates simply to New Street, though as you look at the weathered cobblestones and the towering spire of the Dome Cathedral nearby, you’ll realize that new is a relative term here in Old Riga. You are standing in what is arguably the most famous cinematic lane in Northern Europe. To your eyes, it is a quintessential Baltic thoroughfare, but to millions of film fans, this is the London of Sherlock Holmes and the Switzerland of undercover spies.
Look closely at the building that commands this corner, the stunning Art Nouveau structure completed in 1903. This is the Neiburgs building, designed by the prolific Latvian architect Konstantīns Pēkšēns. It represents the absolute height of Riga’s Golden Age, a time when the city was expanding with a flourish of creative energy that few places in the world could match.
Notice the masks staring down from the facade, the elegant stone carvings of flora, and the balanced, organic curves that define the Jugendstil style. It was originally built as a luxury apartment house for the master builder Ludvigs Neiburgs, and today, after a meticulous restoration by his descendants, it serves as one of the city’s most soulful hotels. But why does this street feel like a carefully constructed stage set?
During the mid-20th century, Soviet filmmakers faced a unique challenge: they needed to film stories set in Western Europe, but the Iron Curtain made traveling to London or Bern impossible. They looked to Riga’s medieval layout and Germanic architecture to provide the perfect stunt double for the West. If you look across from the hotel toward number twenty-two, you are looking at what Soviet audiences knew as 221B Baker Street.
Here, the legendary Vasily Livanov portrayed Sherlock Holmes, puffing on his pipe and solving mysteries right where you are standing. Just a few doors down, the street took on a darker tone for the iconic spy thriller Seventeen Moments of Spring. In that series, Jauniela stood in for a street in Bern.
It was here that the tragic Professor Pleischner met his end, falling from a window after failing to spot a hidden signal in a flowerpot. For decades, tourists from across the USSR flocked to this crooked lane just to walk the same stones as their favorite screen heroes. As you continue your walk, feel the way the street follows the curve of the Dome Cathedral’s massive foundation.
This proximity to the cathedral ensures the lane is often bathed in a soft, dramatic shadow, which only adds to its mystery. Jauniela is a place of layers—medieval foundations, 1903 opulence, and 20th-century make-believe—all converging in one narrow, beautiful passage. Whether you see it as a piece of architectural history or a fragment of film legend, there is no denying the enduring magic of this crooked lane.