Academia Petrina is one of the few historical buildings in Jelgava to have survived World War II. These days, it is home to a museum.

Its walls are decorated with a number of plaques, which report that this was Latvia’s first higher education institution (1775), that in 1815 the first scientific association in the Baltic region was established here, the Courland Literary and Art Society, whose members in 1818 founded Latvia’s second oldest museum – the Courland Province Museum, the first-ever museum outside Rīga.

Still outside, we already find out that three presidents have studied in this educational institution, but, when we open the solid front door, we realise that today the building is home to a museum, for more than 40 years a proud bearer of the name of the distinguished Latvian painter, Ģederts Eliass. Pupils and students continue to come here to learn about historical shifts and shocks from prehistoric times into the present day and about the things that make Jelgava renowned on national and international levels.