19

State Visit

When Tsar Peter visited Freiberg in 1711 he was honoured with a miners parade of 2000 pitmen. They wore their festive costume, white stockings and breeches with black leather patches and miners tunics decorated with velvet, trimmings, tassels and silver buttons. On their heade they wore the traditional cylindrical miners hat in black and green. The “Barte”, a stylised axe they shouldered, is reminiscent of the times when tools were used as weapons to defend the mines against robbers and enimies. In addition the pitmen carried their pit lights and some of them also brought bugles, trumpets and kettledrums. The miners presented the Tsar with wooden troughs full of silver, minerals and precious rocks, “which the adorable nature has buried in Saxony’s blessed lap in abundance”.