Golden Knight

Until 1906, three hundred thousand inhabitants of Riga drank water from wells at street crossings and in courtyards. Public potable water was also taken from the River Daugava, but the city's sewage was also discharged there, which led to diseases.

In 1893, a cholera epidemic raged throughout Russia. The composer Peter Tchaikovsky died of it after drinking a glass of unboiled water in a restaurant ... In 1894, after the epidemic, the Riga City Council decided to supply the citizens with underground potable water and in 1896-1898 drilled thirty-one public artesian wells. Two of them were decorated with sculptures by the neighbourhood Germans. On the Town Hall Square they installed knight Roland above the well, hero of the German epic, and opposite the Bastion Hill - a figure of an unnamed crusader made of inexpensive zinc alloy, covered with bronze paint for gold, on a granite pillar. It was made in the workshop of August Volz after a drawing by the architect Wilhelm Neumann.

The gold painted knight at the entrance to the Old Town was loved and citizens nicknamed him ‘The Golden Knight’. At Christmas he was decorated, a Christmas tree with lanterns was attached to his spear. In 1915, due to the WWI, the monument was dismantled, and now the sculpture is kept in the Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation.

In 2005, at the request of Jevgenijs Gombergs, foundry worker Denis Gočijajevs and sculptor Edvin Krūmiņš made casts of the museum original, and the sculpture was cast in bronze in a workshop in St. Petersburg and covered not with bronze paint, but with gold leaf. The base of the original monument and the capitol of the column were found in the ‘monument warehouse’ on Varoņu Street. Master Ivar Feldbergs carved the column after photographs and made an exact mould of the damaged capitol. According to the sketch of the architect Kristina Viziņa, a bronze tap and a bronze shell-shaped sink with and a granite base under it, which were not present in the original, were made. 

In the 2005 tourist season, the sculpture was exhibited in its historical location on Basteja Square, between the Powder Tower and Bastion Hill, at the corner of Smilšu and the present Siegfried Anna Meyerowitz Boulevard, the former Bastion Boulevard.

In 2006, Teikas Nami completed the renovation of the building at 3 Valņu Street, and the Golden Knight moved into the courtyard of this building.

The sculpture spent fifteen years in the courtyard. In 2021, the house changed ownership. and Eugene Gomberg offered the sculpture to the city as a gift to return it to its historical place. On 18.06.2021, the Monuments Board of the City Council considered proposal and rejected it, as the square was named Barricades Square in 2015, and the idle knight has no place there anymore.

It was agreed to place the sculpture on Vecpilsētas Square, but after the Riga City Council broke the donation agreement for the Barclay de Tolly sculpture, the owners withdrew the donation proposal, while Riga City Council refused to take the sculpture for use or purchase it. 

In 2021, the sculpture was moved to Jurmala.