Elisabethstrasse (Riga)
The Elizabeth Street ( Latvian Elizabetes iela ) is a street in the historic part of Riga . It runs from the export route ( Eksporta ) at the port of Riga to Ahornstrasse ( Kļavu ) on the embankment at Riga Central Station . The total length is 2,222 meters.
It is one of the city's major inner-city streets and is rich in landmarks and architectural monuments. The parks Schützengarten ( Kronvalda park ), the Esplanade and the Wöhrmannsche Garten border on Elisabethstraße .
history
The street was designed when the urban development plan was being drawn up after the wooden buildings in the suburbs of Riga burned down during the Patriotic War of 1812 . In the course of this, Alexanderstraße, which was named in honor of Tsar Alexander I , today Liberty Street ( Brīvības ), and Elisabethstraße, which is named in honor of Alexander's wife, the Russian Empress Elisabeth Alexejewna , were built. The suburbs were successfully reconstructed during the reign of Riga's governor Filippo Paulucci . In fact, Elisabethstrasse served as a borderline between the area free from urban development (in the military tradition such places were called esplanades (or glacis) in the history of European fortified cities ) and the first wooden buildings with gardens and private vegetable gardens on the outskirts (suburbs). In place of the former Esplanade in Riga, there are public and representative buildings as well as a chain of city parks, one of which has retained the name Esplanade .
Elisabethstrasse stretched from the First Weidendamm ( Ganibu ) in a south-easterly direction over the old part of the city to the bank of the Daugava in the area of today's central market . In 1885 the road in the direction of the port was extended to today's export route. After a while, Elisabethstrasse was shortened. The southern section in the area of the Moscow suburb was interrupted by the railway line. This area between the railway and Daugava was named Turgenev Street ( Turgeņeva ).
In 1940 after the occupation of Latvia , Elisabethstrasse was renamed Kirowstrasse, but was later given its original name again.
Institutions and monuments
- No. 15, was the seat of the Austrian Embassy in Riga from 1997 to 2016
- No. 49, seat of the Latvian Olympic Committee
On the south side of Elisabethstrasse, the Kalpaks monument was inaugurated in 2006 in memory of the Latvian officer Oskars Kalpaks .
Prominent residents
- No. 13:
- 1945-1958 lived in the house an outstanding Latvian writer and statesman, Vilis Lācis .
- The writer Nikolai Zadornov lived in the house from 1948 to 1992 (a memorial plaque was unveiled in 2009).
- No. 21a: From 1944–1966, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Latvia , Arvīds Pelše, lived in the house .
- No. 24: The famous Riga artist Kārlis Padegs (1911–1940) lived in apartment No. 55 from 1918.
- No. 57:
- In the apartment on the third floor lived from 1945 to 1956 the famous Latvian conductor, people's artist of the USSR Arvīds Jansons with his wife Iraida and his son Mariss , who later became a famous Russian conductor. After Jansons moved to Leningrad , the apartment was given to the writer Andrejs Upīts . After his death, a memorial museum was set up in the apartment;
- Apartment 26 was occupied by famous artists R. Suta and Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga , the apartment became a memorial apartment;
- In this house, the Republic of Latvia provided the ex-presidents Guntis Ulmanis and Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga with apartments.
- No. 63: In the 1920s and 30s, a famous Riga film mogul, creator of the Splendid Palace cinema, Vasily Emelyanov , lived in apartment No. 5 . The Latvian internist Martin Sihle (1863-1945), who is remembered by a memorial plaque, also lived here .
- No. 101: In the years 1932-1940 the Soviet-Latvian painter, sculptor and graphic artist Jānis Roberts Tilbergs lived in the house .
literature
- Rīgas ielas. 3. sējums. - Mārupe: Drukātava, 2009. - pp. 21-26. - ISBN 978-9984-798-86-8
- Kirova Street // Riga: Encyclopedia = Enciklopēdija «Rīga» / Editor-in-Chief PP Eran. - Riga: main edition of the encyclopedias, 1989. - p. 364. - 880 p. - 60,000 copies. - ISBN 5-89960-002-0 .
Web links
- Elisabeth Street on the website citariga.lv
Coordinates: 56 ° 57 ′ 20 ″ N , 24 ° 6 ′ 56 ″ E