- CountryLatvia
- Town:Riga
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Year of creation:1910
- Rider(s):Peter the Great
or Pyotr Alexeyevich (1672–1725) ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire. With numerous successful wars, he expanded the Tsardom into a huge empire that became a major European power. He created a cultural shift by replacing the traditionalist and medieval social and political system with a modern, scientific, European-oriented and rationalist system. He moved the capital of Russia from Moscow to the city that he created from scratch: St Petersburg.
- Sculptor(s):Schmidt-Kossel
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Photographers unknown
The Peter the Great statue was originally erected in Riga at the beginning of the last century only to be torn down by the Russians during WW I. They intended to melt the statue into bullets. However, the ship it was traveling on was hit and sunk near the coast of Estonia and the recovered statue was sold to Latvia in the 1930s. It has been renovated with private money and stashed from place to place.
