Many tourists have made a lasting memory by saddling the Merry Goat on Teatralnaya Square, one of the most popular outdoor sculptures in Nizhny Novgorod. The placement is not incidental: since 1993 this has been the venue for the eponymous Russian national festival of kapustniks, or amateur variety performances, and the Merry Goat is the festival’s mascot. The origins of the concept, however, trace back even deeper in the past, as far back as 1781 when Nizhny Novgorod received its official coat of arms with a deer on it. It quickly came to be popularly known as «the merry goat». Another story has it that, in the 17th century, during a major fire in the city, the flames frightened a goat sleeping in a barn so much that it dashed out into the streets in terror, hit a fire tower head on, got tangled in the ropes, ringing the alarm bell. The sound of the bell woke up the people, and the fire was put out in time. This lucky moment brought forth a local Nizhny Novgorod tradition to celebrate the goat during the Maslenitsa festivities each year.