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Baltics trip
Day 7 - 22nd May - Dome Cathedral: Riga, Latvia (Part 3)
As you might have realised, in both the Baltics and Japan travelogues, very often pictures of artefacts and/or buildings are presented without explanation. Most of the time, this is not from lack of trying on my part, but due to lack of signposting (usually at all, let alone in English). In Western Europe, because the languages are related to English I could transcribe captions more easily, or make an educated guess as to their meaning, but not so in these 2 trips.
Dome Cathedral, the largest house of worship in the Baltics. It was founded by a missionary from Germany.
Art exhibition in the square
Flag hotel. My theory is that the more flags a hotel flies, the more expensive and atas it is. This has 6 visible flags (and maybe 1 or 2 more hidden by the other building)
Memorial to some guy with a German name (you see the German influence and all that)
We went into the Cathedral's cloisters.
Cloister
Grave steles
Various bells
Bishop Albert, founder of Riga.
Cathedral inner wall.
Romanesque Cloisters
Coat of Arms of Riga
Huge Cock (Weathervane of the Dom spire)
Castle of Riga reliefs with images of the Virgin Mary and Master of the Livonian Order
Cannon and cannonballs
Riga. Craftsman Reynken from Lubeck. 1522. Doorside stone from House of the Blackheads.
Tower from Cloisters
Random sculptures
Stone head from Salaspils, buried in the cathedral yard for some reason
Monument to Peter I of Russia, plaster of Paris model
Seal
Renovations
The we re-entered the cathedral-proper.
Awakening of Lazarus, mid-18th century.
"Sad to say, Baltic art is always substandard" - nw.t
Nave
As surely as every sperm is precious, this is some nonsense about abortion.
More memorials. Note the pseudo-caduceus in the second - a snake twirled around a cross on top of a skull.
19th century stained glass. You can tell it's not medieval with one look - it's too clean, there's too little lead and it's too well-executed artistically. With the same look, you can tell it's not 20th century - it looks too good, the figures are too realistic and something is actually happening.
Grave
Altar. Very underwhelming compared to the rest of the cathedral.
Pulpit
Simple Vaulting. The beams were discomfiting - perhaps without them the roof would collapse. Maybe the instability was due to a missing keystone - notice the gaping hole where (perhaps) an all-seeing eye would be
Unfortunately the organ was under repair so I didn't take a picture.
All in all, visiting the Dome Cathedral was a reminder that Eastern Europe was not always part of the Third World.
