Bremen Town Musicians sculpture

Watch where you step, you might come face to face with a donkey! The Bremen Town Musicians sculpture, located just behind St Peter’s Church, shows the four animals from the famous Brothers Grimm tale stacked on top of one another. At the base of this animal pyramid stands a donkey, followed by a dog, a cat, and finally a rooster. In the story, these four ageing and mistreated animals flee their masters and decide to become musicians in Bremen. Along the way, they scare off a group of bandits by standing on top of each other and making as much noise as they can. The sculpture reflects the message of the tale: although old and rejected, the four animals find success and freedom by joining forces. This bronze work by artist Christa Baumgärtel was gifted in 1990 by the German city of Bremen, twinned with Riga since 1985. It was installed at a pivotal moment in history, when Latvia was still under Soviet rule but on the verge of regaining its independence, symbolising both the friendship between the two cities and a message of hope and freedom. Today, the statue has become one of the Old Town’s most popular curiosities, and local belief has it that touching the animals’ noses brings good luck, the higher the nose you manage to reach, the more likely your wish is to come true, so you might want to start stretching!