RIGA — Riga’s only surviving synagogue reopened Wednesday following two years of costly renovations.

The formal opening event had numerous high-profile guests such as Latvian President Valdis Zatlers, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis and Riga City Mayor Nils Ushakovs.

The synagogue, which is named Peitav Shul and located in Riga’s Old Town, was the only one to survive the 1941 Nazi Germany occupation of the country. While other synagogues were burned down, Nazi forces felt that setting the building alight would pose a fire danger to other buildings located nearby.

Latvian President Valdis Zatlers (front row, right) and Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis attend yesterday's opening of the renovated synagogue in Riga.

“We are proud that our generation has that honor of restoring the synagogue to its former grandeur and of leaving it to future generations in this condition,” Riga Jewish Community Chairman Arkady Sukharenko said at the event.

Reconstruction work, started in 2007 and cost more than $2.8 million, the the Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS (FJC) reported. Funding was provided by the Latvian government, the EU, and about 1,000 private donors.

Approximately 60 percent of the roof was replaced and extensive structural and aesthetic renovations were undertaken.

The synagogue’s renovation means that now, and a hundred years from now, this will be the center of the Jewish community of Riga,” Rabbi Mordechai Glazman, a Chabad-Lubavitch emissary serving in Latvia, said in a FJC press release.

According to census data, the Latvian Jewish community now numbers about 10,800, down from more than 70,000 before the onset of WWII. The building was one of the few temples that was allowed to continue operations in the Soviet Union.