In 2008 the 50 years since the renewal of the Riga Polytechnic Institute (RPI) were remembered. In 1918 the activities of the oldest technical university in the Baltic Countries and the first technical university on the territory of Latvia ceased to exist. In 1861 the Russian Czar had signed the fundamental law of the RP (Riga Polytechnic) into law, a privat institution with the German language as language of education. In 1862 the first students were enrolled. In 1896 the Riga Polytechnic was reorganized to be the Riga Polytechnic Institute with the Russian language as the language of education and in part financed by the Russian State. The RPI had been closed in 1919 because its books and laboratories, which had been evacuated to Russia in 1915 after the beginning of First World War had not been returned to Latvia into the buildings at Raina Boulevard 19 and Kronwalda Boulevard 4. Only a small part of the property and of the staff of the RPI returned after the war. On the basis of material from the RPI a Polytechnic Institute war founded in Iwanowowosnesensk in Russia, while in Latvia the Institution of higher Education of Latvia was founded, in 1922 named University of Latvia, which took over the technical faculties of the former RPI. In 1922 the former student of the RPI, N. Okolo – Kulak wanted to open a Private Russian Technical Institute but was denied permission. In 1923 the former student of the RPI Janis Levans proposed without success to take the technical faculties away from the University of Latvia to start the RPI anew. In 1942 the Soviet Government of Latvia proposed the renewal of the RPI for the first time but its idea could not materialize because of the beginning of the Second World War. After the war, in 1954 they tried to realize the idea after lengthy discussions and many decisions but because of the lack of qualified engineers in Latvia the PRI only could start in 1958. In 1990 it changed its name to Riga Technical University, which is now continuing its old traditions.