For the eighth year in a row SJSC “State Real Estate” continues to support the Lāčplēsis Day tradition – lighting of candles and placing them at 11. novembra krastmala on the historical ringwall of the Riga Castle. This year, part of the used candles will be transformed into candles and delivered to the residents of Ukraine, informs Inta Plūmiņa, Head of SRE Corporate Communication and Sustainability Department.
To preserve the restored ringwall of Riga Castle and promote repeated use of the candles, SRE invites to choose candles in glass containers, therefore also protecting the restored stone wall of the castle from melted and environmentally unfriendly candle residues.
SRE has already installed the protective screen created according to the idea of the architect Pēteris Blūms, which helps to protect the bricks of the historical wall of Riga Castle from the irreversible thermal damage and piles of sand on the pavement. The protective screen for the placing of candles consists of 175 sections with a length of 184 meters and a width of one meter. It is possible to place 60 candles on one section of a protective screen, whereas it is possible to place 10.5 thousand candles along the entire length of the screen.
The residues of the candles representatives of the Riga 21 Secondary School will gather on the 12 November and on the 17 November at the school premises in 35 Tomsona Street, will be turned into candles during a candle making masterclass. Pupils will be able to take part in the masterclass from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, and neighbourhood residents will be able to make their candles to support Ukraine from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm.
Since the autumn of 2020, under the supervision of SRE, the restoration of the oldest part (convent) of Riga Castle has been carried out, adapting it to the needs of the National History Museum of Latvia. The ringwall of the Riga Castle complex on the side of the Daugava and Vanšu bridge was built as a fence for the Castle Garden in the last quarter of the 19th century. Its design was developed in 1874 by the provincial architect Julius Hagen, partially rebuilding the outer wall of the former Horn bastion.
SRE successfully implements 44 projects of national importance, of which 24 are in the construction stage. The total implementation budget of the projects is more than 336 million euro. Alongside the reconstruction of the Valmiera Drama Theatre, the energy efficiency improvement and renovation works of three theatres important to Latvian culture are underway. The company provides professional real estate management and administration for approximately 365 real estate properties consisting of 1100 buildings with a total floor area of 0.95 million square metres, along with land beneath the buildings covering 602 hectares and more than 3536 land properties with an area of 903 hectares. SRE is one of 23 Latvian companies to have received the highest platinum award as part of the Sustainability Index of the Institute of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability, confirming the good governance and sustainability of its operations. The company was founded in 1996 and is 100% owned by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Latvia.
