St James’s Cathedral

Another cathedral, you might be thinking? And yes, the city of Riga has no fewer than four cathedrals, reflecting its religious diversity and complex history. Each belongs to a different Christian denomination, and you are now standing in front of St James’s Cathedral, a Roman Catholic church. It is one of the oldest churches in the city, built in the 13th century and marked by a sober Gothic style dominated by a slender tower topped with roosters, a typical symbol of local medieval steeples. But one of the most fascinating elements lies around the building itself: during excavations carried out in 2018, nearly 300 burials dating from the 14th to the early 18th century were discovered, along with a vast ossuary adjoining the southern wall, considered the largest known in the Baltic States. This ossuary, where bones were gathered over time to free up space in the cemetery, reflects the importance of the cathedral as a burial site for the inhabitants of Riga, at a time when other cemeteries were mainly reserved for populations of German origin, a historic discovery that sheds more light on Latvian history.