In gratitude for 17 years of friendship and successful cooperation in various fields, the sister city of Jelgava in France, Rieijmalmezon, has prepared an exclusive gift for Jelgava – the big gate of the tower fence of Jelgava’s Holy Trinity Church.
The gate is modeled after photographs of historical gates. On Saturday, April 27, in the presence of donors, the gates were ceremonially opened.
“This is a wonderful proof of the friendship between the two cities. Jelgava expresses its great gratitude to you for the valuable gift and for the fact that you were able to appreciate the historical significance of the tower of the Holy Trinity Church in Jelgava and allowed this object to recover the historical gate of the fence,” Andris Rāviņš, chairman of the Jelgava City Council, thanked the donors.
“The friendship that has developed between our cities – Jelgava and Rieijmalmezon – is very stable. Just like this metal gate. I want to say that this gate symbolically opens many new joint opportunities and projects in the future. May we have even more exchange programs, even closer cooperation in various fields. We are really pleased to see how the city has developed over the years, how it has changed and now we have also left our mark on it by donating gates,” says the former French minister, mayor of the sister city of Riejmalmaison, and president of the Greater Paris Metropolis 2024 Patrick Ollier, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games. When opening the gate, P. Olje also symbolically presented the key to the gate to the chairman of the Jelgava City Council.
The design of the large gate of the fence was developed based on the study of historical photographs of the gate and matching it with the existing small gate to form a unified architectural ensemble. The recommendations and suggestions of the National Cultural Heritage Board are taken into account in the work process.
The large fence gate is made of filled metal and weighs about 450 kilograms, its highest point reaches three meters, and the width of the gate is 2.5 meters. Symbolically valuing the friendship of the two cities, the great coat of arms of Jelgava is embedded in the gate on one side, and the coat of arms of Rieijmalmezon on the other.
The twinning agreement between Jelgava and Rieijmalmezon, which envisages cooperation in the fields of education, science, technology, civil defense, crisis management and city infrastructure monitoring, culture, sports, health care, human resources and business, was concluded in June 2007.
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