History Lesson by Phone: The Bloody Crusader Invasion Inspired the Riga City Council 0 17

The unified phone number coincides with the year Riga was founded by German Bishop Albert von Buxthoeven, who established the city in 1201. The bishop arrived at the mouth of the Daugava River with the crusaders to baptize the local lands and made Riga the center of the Livonian Confederation.

Eight centuries later, the Riga City Council decided to use the year of the crusaders' arrival for a phone number that provides prompt communication for both everyday issues and crisis situations.

It doesn't matter that starting from 1201, local tribes were conquered by sword and fire. Now the phone number is easier to remember.

According to the Riga municipality, the advantage of a short number is that it is easy to remember, especially in situations where mobile internet service is disrupted and it is impossible to quickly find a regular number.

The Riga municipality has centralized its communication system since July 1 of last year, combining the numbers of several previous information phones into a single free number 80001201. Now a short equivalent for this number has been introduced - 1201.

Through the unified number of the Riga City Council on working days from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, information about municipal services can be obtained, while reports of incidents in the city are accepted around the clock. The information phones of municipal enterprises "Rīgas satiksme" (public transport), "Rīgas ūdens" (water supply) and "Rīgas namu pārvaldnieks" (housing management) are not yet included in the centralized system.