The inseparable connection between hospitality and hostility is a central characteristic of hospitality. This article takes up this aspect and examines it using the example of Riga’s surrender in July 1710. Within barely two weeks, the city and its inhabitants changed their legal status twice: from a besieged to an occupied city and from occupied to Russian subjects. These transformations were embedded in forms of ritualized hospitality in which attackers and besieged, occupied and new rulers met. While the provision of hostages in the course of the negotiations on the surrender of the city enabled non-hostile communication and were intended to ensure the success of the negotiations, the entry of the Russian General Field Marshal Sheremetev into the city of Riga ten days later transformed Riga into a Russian city and its inhabitants into Russian subjects. It thus served to display Russian rule and secure it.