On Saturday, 4 March at 13.00 at the Liepāja 17th – 19th Century Interior Museum on 24 Kungu Street we welcome you to the “Chimney Sweep Day at Hoyer’s”, offering a chance to witness the spring maintenance of the historical chimney stack, pose for photos with the chimney sweeps, and enjoy a performance by the band “Saule i tuvāk” along with a delicious meal at the Hoyer’s Tavern.
Beginning at 13.00, you will witness the chimney sweeps maintaining the chimney stack. After that you can take photos with the chimney sweeps dressed in their traditional uniforms, rub the lucky button and dine with the chimney sweeps in the Hoyer’s Tavern.
From 14.00, in the Hoyer’s Tavern the band “Saule i tuvāk” will serenade us their magical music based on ethnographic sounds of kokle. The charms of these instruments will be combined with percussion, various folk instruments, voices and chants.
The chimney sweep has long been known as the bearer of fortune, and once you have touched their buttons, your wish is destined to come true. However, the chimney sweep’s task also demands a sooty face, working at heights, climbing skills, unpredictably extreme situations and the succession of skills through generations.
There are no schools in Latvia where you can apprentice as a chimney sweep, so learning the art is still carried out in the way it was in the past, when the skill was handed down from generation to generation within strictly regulated master fraternities.
To begin with, each individual must find their own master to introduce the apprenticeship. The knowledge acquired must then be tested by the Latvian Brotherhood of Chimney Sweeps, a process involving tests and a certificate, so that the apprentice can first become a junior and then a master. Chimney sweeping is a more male-dominated qualification in Latvia, but in other parts of Europe, such as Germany, it is often successfully carried out by women.
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