Legends of Old Riga

Old Riga can tell a lot of historical (and not only) legends and in this article, we will take a look at some of the most famous of them.

The Legend about Rooster on St.Peter’s main church of Riga.

(Credit:http://foto.inbox.lv/alteriga/Cerkvi-Rigi/this work is in the public domain, author unknown)

“This Rooster remembers how on 9th October in the year 1746 great master Johann Wühlbern in an occasion when church’s restoration works successfully were finished, sat on him, drank a glass of wine for church’s and town’s wellness and threw that glass down. But unfortunately! Glass fell on a straw, stayed undamaged and that was a very bad sign… In 200 years, June of the year 1941, the church was on fire and ruined eventually, because of Hitler’s bomb attack. On August 21 the year of 1970 architect Peter Saulitis repeating the old tradition was sitting on Rooster, drinking champagne from 150-old glass for the glory of the renewed church, and then threw that as much as he can for safety in this time! Glass was fully crashed. At the same time on a temporary wooden platform, all other masters and architects were celebrating and having a glass of drink for the church as well, after all, master Valdis Krivans took all the glasses in a basket and went downstairs. The basket accidentally fell from his strong arms and 14 glasses were crushed on more than hundreds of shards, which were predicting a long and full of happiness life, for St.Peter’s church!” 

The legend about Cat’s House

(Credit: User:Smig – CC BY 3.0, https://ru.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2980431)

On Livu square, over against Large Guild, there is a building on the roof of which are staying two metallic black cats. This building has stayed there since the year 1910 and was built by one very rich Latvian trader who wasn’t taken to a Large Guild, organization of merchants. The trader was very offended by that and to show how much he got upset, he placed those two cats on the roof, with their tails and backside turned straight to a Large Guild. They weren’t really happy about that. In fact, they were insulted by that sign and cats become a reason for a scandal. This case even went to court, but they couldn’t make the trader turn cats around. Eventually, after some time cats were turned around, but no one knows the reason. Nowadays those cats become already a visit card of Old Town.

The Legend about a Swedish Gate

Gate was built in the year 1698 and meant to connect the inner-city with the houses in the outside city. Like all other gates in Riga at that time, they were opened with sunrise and closed with a sunset. Foreign soldiers were living in those houses outside the city and ladies from the inner-city were forbidden to meet them. Though one lady met and fell in love with one Swedish soldier, those gates were their meeting point for dates. One day soldier didn’t come on a date and a lady was caught by townspeople. As a punishment, they bricked up her in those gates. As the legend says, even till present days when it is midnight, standing near or in the gate, you can hear her whispering: “And even so I love him!”. Only people who had true love in their lives can hear the whisper.

Sources:

• Ergle, Z. E., & Cielava, S. C. (1971). Foreword. In What the houses and streets of old Riga are telling us about (pp. 5–8). Publisher “Liesma.”
• Шведские ворота. (n.d.-b). Cita Rīga. http://www.citariga.lv/rus/rigas-apskates-vietas/vecriga/zviedru-varti/
• Кошкин дом. (n.d.). Cita Rīga. http://www.citariga.lv/rus/rigas-apskates-vietas/vecriga/kaku-nams/