Latvia, a country dotted with many castles, took a blow last week when the roofs of Riga Castle, containing the country’s National History Museum, caught fire. The fire raged from Thursday through the night into Friday morning damaging the roof and the second and third floors of the castle. Early reports indicated that the castle’s collection survived intact with some water damage. The castle also serves as the presidential residence. The History Museum of Latvia was founded in 1869 and has the largest museum collection of material relating to the Latvian people.

The museum, whose main mission is to tell the full story of Latvia beginning in the 9th century BCE, has collections in Archaeology, Ethnography, Numismatics and History. Of about a million artifacts about 40,000 were damaged. Restoration plans were given the go ahead on Saturday as discussions began about installing a temporary roof. No items from the Latvian National Art Museum’s collection were damaged.