Atmodas Street Houses No. 18 and 16

Marketplace in the mid-20s

Marketplace in 2014

Judging by the snow on the roofs, this could be the Simeon’s Fair.

The photo shows the town buildings that partially delimit the marketplace.

On the right side is the wing of the L-shaped № 14 Atmodas Street house built along the market square. The water pump seen in the middle of the square was the only public drinking water intake owned by the municipality in Aizpute in the second half of the 19th century (1865).

A one-storey wooden house on the left is № 18 Atmodas Street.

The building shown in the photo was built around 1852 on the then joint plot of land with № 18A Atmodas Street, which belonged to the heirs of the Court Bailiff and Police Chief Johann Heinrich Pape - the miller Daniel Pape and his sisters. In 1855 they decided to keep this new house for themselves, but to sell the old one next door, so the plot was divided.

In 1871 they sold the property for 900 Rubles to the mason A. Grandenberg, from whom it was bought by Wilhelmine Lange in 1878, and in the same year it was sold for 2,485 Rubles to the Town Secretary Wilhelm Ulich, the Court Attorney Dreiersdorf and the Secretary K. Katterfeld. Schlaume Edelberg bought the house with a plot of land from this trio in 1880 for 2,600 Rubles, and from 1889 it was the property of his heirs and heirs’ heirs. The last owner was Cipora Roza Dobrija, who had acquired it from Edelberg's heirs by gift and inheritance.

In 1884, a coach driver Josel Grünfeld with two assistants, Jeanot Fleitner, a pump maker, earned their living at this address. There was also Jette Burnstein's bakery and Morduch Tuff's colonial goods and tobacco shop.

In 1910, the Council Construction Commission found that the house owned by Edelberg's heirs at 18 Atmodas Street was in such a condition that it had to be totally rebuilt, but the Laube horse stable had to be demolished or rebuilt immediately.

In the 1920s, there was A. Klock's dish shop and Jakob Goldinger's butcher shop, which was here until the end of the 1930s. Hirsch Grünfeld's butcher's shop was also here in the 1930s.

In 1929, Anna Liekne received patents to trade with beer and domestic fruit and berry wines at this address, but in 1931 the Town Council allowed Olga Emde to open a grocery store and tea house here, and a few months later Anna Ķivelīte had a permission for a tea house without the right to trade beer and wine.

In the 1930s, photographer Kārlis Ernstsons could also be found in this house.

Nowadays, a private property with a place to sell various goods.

The small two-storey building to the right of № 18 was built in 1923 as an extension to the house № 16, when the Town Council granted the request of Feldmanis, the owner of № 14 Atmodas Street, to allow the building to be built between the houses No 16 and 18 of Lielā (The Big) Street to build a shop there. There was both Jakob Goldinger's meat and sausage shop and Leopold Davidson's tinsmith's workshop.

№ 16 is a two-storey stone house built by Karl Lavendel in 1883 on a 2760 square foot (1146 m²) plot of land belonging to the Council transferred to him as collateral, provided that the owner must provide a heated barn i.e., a fire barn for the storage of fire-fighting equipment, the temperature of which must not be lower than 4 degrees after Réaumur (5º C). For this, the landlord is exempt from all Council taxes and fees. This barn, or fire station, was on the left wing of the building.

Already in 1884 there was a beer hall of Kalnmuiža (Berghof) beermaker Jānis Kūlmanis, as well as a bookkeeper Harrijs Bellmeris's workshop.

In 1904, Lavendel sold the house for 3,600 Rubles to the Councilor Viktor Goldmann, who was also the Secretary of the Town Council.

On July 10, 1923, this house was bought from Viktor Goldmann for 5,266.68 Lats by pharmacist Teodors Ozoliņš, to whom in 1922 the government had issued a concession to open a second pharmacy in Aizpute. He named his pharmacy the "New Pharmacy", but the easement established for this house in 1883 for the premises of the fire station was still valid.

In 1924, Ozoliņš pharmacy occupied three rooms, his apartment four, one room - a fire station store-room, another - Davidson tinsmith's workshop.

In 1927, the Aizpute Branch of the Latvian Traders' Union and the office of P. Zvirgzdiņš, a veterinarian of Aizpute District, were also here.

In 1929, Ozoliņš donated the house to his wife Marija Ozoliņa, born Roždestvenska, from whom it was bought together with the pharmacy in the same year by pharmacist’s assistant Abrams Zeba, who did not change the name of the pharmacy, but local people in Aizpute calld it as “Zeba’s Pharmacy”.

On July 5, 1932, Abrams Tuvie Zeba sold his "New Pharmacy" with all the equipment, concessions, inventory and other accessories belonging to it to the pharmacist’s assistant Behr-Motel (Max) Katz. In the autumn, Zeba announced to the honoured audience that he had left the Aizpute New Pharmacy and opened a drug, chemical and paint store in Aizpute, № 14 Lielā (The Big) Street with prices suitable for the crisis.

In 1933, Zeba asked the Town Council to cancel against payment the obligation imposed on his house by way of an easement to provide heated premises for holding firefighting equipment. The Town Council decided to agree if the property owner sets up equivalent premises for the storage of fire engines and tools at his own expense. As a result, everything remained the same.

The agreement concluded in 1936 between the Aizpute Council and the owners of private pharmacies in the town shows that at that time the owners of the "New Pharmacy" were Irene Lichtenstein and Ester Zeba.

The pharmacy existed here until the end of the 1930s, when Irene Lichtenstein repatriated to Germany.

Nowadays - municipal property with Aizpute District Tourism Information and Lifelong Learning Center.

BACK TO START OF THE STREET