New Memorial Garden honours Zolitūde tragedy victims

LSM reported that victims and relatives of those killed in the Zolitūde tragedy gathered on Monday for the opening of a Memorial Garden dedicated to the 54 people who died when the Maxima supermarket collapsed.

Thirteen years will have passed since the tragedy in November. Dozens of people were also seriously injured in the collapse.

Victims, relatives of those killed and emergency service workers attended the opening ceremony. The idea for the garden was developed in cooperation with the Zolitūde 21.11 association.

Viktorija Ulanova lost her mother, Natālija Igumnova. “We searched for her for a long time. On the third day, we went to the identification, and that was the end of it,” Ulanova said.

She said the past 13 years had been difficult because her children had never seen their grandmother, nor had her sisters’ children. Her youngest nephew was three months old at the time.

“I believe today is another day of mourning. But at least now we have a proper place where we can remember those who died. This will also be a place for the injured, where they can stand, be silent and perhaps find peace,” Ulanova said.

Emergency service workers also attended the ceremony. Roland Lejiņš was driving an ambulance operated by the Emergency Medical Service at the opening, as he had been in 2013. He was the first to arrive at the scene.

“We received a call saying that there had been an explosion at Maxima. As we approached, it felt as if something like this could not really happen in real life. It seemed as if we were on a film set or in a completely different dimension,” Lejiņš recalled.

Sarmīte Leitāne, head of the Imanta Brigade Support Centre of the Emergency Medical Service, said it took several days for workers to fully understand what had happened.

“We allowed ourselves to deal with the emotions after the event. Only after a couple of days did we truly understand what had happened here,” she said.

The garden contains trees and 54 metal spheres with mirrored surfaces, each symbolically commemorating one of the people who died.