Zolitūde

Zolitūde (Latvian pronunciation: [ˈzɔlituːde]) is mainly an apartment house neighbourhood (or microdistrict) located in the western part of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Zolitūde is a centrally planned estate, consisting mostly of prefabricated concrete block Brutalist style homes built in late Soviet times. Construction started in 1984, and was mostly halted in 1991, when Latvia gained independence from the USSR. Large parts of the population, as in similar neighbourhoods of Riga, are Russian speaking. Zolitūde had been a mixture of council housing and co-operative flats, but many properties have been privatised since the fall of the Soviet Union.