Although in most of Eastern Europe it was the Soviets who erected this kind of thing, 'Milda' as she is know to the locals is a powerful symbol of anti-soviet feeling. The modernist friezes around the base were made in 1935 by Latvian artist karlis Zale and depict the fight for freedom. There are immaculately dressed sentries on permanent duty around the base who are only marginally less immoble than the statues. Flowers are often lain here in memory of the 170,000 Latvians who were killed or sent to the Siberian Gulag under Soviet rule.