On Brivibas Street, 137 in Riga, there still stands a house with a weather vane in the shape of a bicycle. Here, the 'Russia' factory operated - the first industrial production of 'two-wheeled horses' in the Russian Empire.

It was founded by Alexander Leitner, a mechanic from Kuldiga. He learned the craft at the Rasha workshop in Riga, then went to gain experience at European bicycle factories - in Lyon and Coventry. Upon returning in 1886, he opened a workshop at Gertrudes, 27, where only two dozen 'spiders' - machines with a huge front wheel - were assembled in a year. The brave souls who dared to ride such machines were watched with envious eyes at the seaside beach.
Demand grew quickly. In 1890, production moved to Suvorovskaya (now Kr. Barona, 21), where sixty craftsmen were already working on bicycles. By 1895, the factory occupied buildings on Alexandrovskaya - now Brivibas: three hundred workers, one thousand machines a year. Before World War I, this number reached eighteen thousand, including foldable military models.

The city changed with the fashion. In 1887, enthusiasts laid a bicycle track in the Tsarsky Garden, and in 1898, the authorities required cyclists to pass a driving test and equip their machines with brakes and numbers.
Leitner turned out to be a lucky entrepreneur: under the 'Russia' brand, they produced motorboats, weapons, and motorcycles. He also assembled cars from foreign components, making his own improvements - at the exhibition for Riga's 700th anniversary, such a car received an award. However, the production could not withstand competition from the influx of foreign models.

Leitner considered airplanes, but in 1915, the factory was evacuated to Kharkov. Nine years later, the first Soviet bicycle rolled off the assembly line there - but that is a completely different story, one that began far from the streets of Riga.