Lighthouses of Estonia

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

According to the decision of the International Organization of Lighthouses and Maritime Signs IALA, six Estonian lighthouses - Kõpu, Ruhnu, Keri, Suurupi, Tahkuna and Pakri - are included in the list of lighthouses under protection.

• The lighthouse in Estonian is called tuletorn, which translates as “fire tower”, “tower with fire”. And somewhere, but in Estonia, 1/10 of which is occupied by islands, they know a lot about lighthouses! Trading ships of Hanseatic merchants and Swedish galleons and galleys have long sailed through one and a half thousand islands, through sharp capes and narrow straits. There are many lighthouses here, they fit perfectly into the landscape, and many of them have a very long history.

Today there are 61 lighthouses, 187 navigation signs and more than 200 buoys in operation in Estonia.

The history of lighthouses is closely intertwined with navigation; they arouse interest as maritime and architectural structures not only among specialists, but also among lovers of romance and adventure, not to mention photographers and artists who happily share their observations and impressions of Estonian lighthouses with others.

It is no coincidence that several books dedicated to lighthouses have been published in recent years. Recently, photographer Kaido Haagen's album “Eesti tuletornide lugu” (“History of Estonian Lighthouses”) was published, which presents not only all Estonian lighthouses, but also many maritime navigational signs.

Lighthouse Ruhnu

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Construction: steel cylinder on four supports

Height from the ground: 39.5 m

Altitude: 65 m

Visibility range: 11 nautical miles

A lighthouse with a metal tower was installed on Ruhnu Island in 1877 instead of a demolished wooden structure. The lighthouse was assembled from parts manufactured at the Le Havre factory in France. A four-legged steel cylinder with a spiral staircase inside was designed by Gustave Eiffel. It was one of the cheapest models. This is the only surviving lighthouse of this type in the Baltic Sea region.

• The lighthouse of Ruhnu Island is notable at least for its location: Ruhnu, or Runo in Swedish, is a tiny island a hundred kilometers from the Estonian coast. No other land is visible from it, but meanwhile, there is a village and the oldest wooden church in the Baltics. And the lighthouse at the highest point is a metal structure reminiscent of the Martian tripods from H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. Only it has 5 “legs”, including the central one, and it was built long before the famous novel was written - in 1877. The rivets at the joints of metal sheets indicate their venerable age - electric welding had not yet been invented then.

Lower lighthouse Suurupi

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Harju County is, simply put, the outskirts of Tallinn.

Construction: wooden

Height from ground surface: 15 m

Height above sea level: 18 m

Visibility range: 11 nautical miles

• A complex of two lighthouses on a high bank and right next to the water, both of which can be immediately seen only from the sea. The lower lighthouse, built in the mid-19th century, is unique in that it is made of wood. This structure, the width of which is almost equal to the height, is not at all similar to the lighthouses we are used to - towers pointing towards the sky.

The tetrahedral wooden tower in the shape of a pyramid was built in 1859. This is the oldest and only functioning wooden lighthouse in Estonia.

In 1885, the lower Suurupi lighthouse was reconstructed and built on. Most likely, it was intended as a temporary structure, but it is still operating successfully.

Kõpu Lighthouse

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Myak Kõpu (Dagerort) on the island of Hiiumaa

Construction: tetrahedral stone tower with buttresses

Height from ground surface: 36 m

Altitude: 102 m

Visibility range: 26 nautical miles*

One of the oldest lighthouses in the world, the Kõpuski lighthouse, has been warning sailors for centuries about the Hiiu shoal, also called the Suurrahu shoal or Nekmansgrund. Since many ships were in distress when they ran aground on the Hiiu shoal, Hanseatic officials even before 1490 petitioned for the construction of a structure on the Kõpu Peninsula that would be visible from afar and well recognizable. In 1499, at the Hanseatic Days in Lübeck, due to the death of a large number of ships, it was decided to request permission from the Bishop of Saaremaa to build an above-ground structure on his lands. Construction work began in 1505 and continued intermittently for 26 years. The first fire on the tower site was lit on August 1, 1531.

• Mäk Kõpu is certainly the main Estonian lighthouse. Built in the 1550s by Hanseatic merchants, and improved by the Swedes in the 17th century, this is one of the oldest lighthouses in the world - the guidebooks say that it is the second after the Spanish one in La Coruña, built by the Roman Empire, but in fact the fifth: there is also the medieval lighthouse of La Laterna in Genoa and a couple in the British Isles. Like the wooden Surupi, Kypu is not at all like the elegant lighthouses of our time - an impregnable man-made rock, on the flat “top” of which a powerful fire was once simply lit, and in the 19th century a turret with a lantern was built on it. The narrow staircase inside the lighthouse was broken through at the same time - and before, the keeper had climbed up using ropes.

As an architectural monument, the Kypuskiy lighthouse has come a long way from a medieval ground tower to a structure with modern equipment, the light of which warns sailors of danger.

• 1 nautical mile is equal to 1852 meters.

Lighthouse Keri (formerly Kokskari)

Design: cylindrical metal tower on a stone cylindrical base, the so-called. decanter

Height from the ground: 28 m

Altitude: 31 m

Visibility range: 11 nautical miles

On Keri Island, a low rocky island in the Gulf of Finland six kilometers north of Prangli Island, there has been a lighthouse in operation since 1719. The lighthouse in the shape of a decanter, erected by order of Peter I, is considered one of the first lighthouses in the Gulf of Finland. The stone tower that has survived to this day was built in 1803; the metal superstructure was installed in 1858.

It is believed that in 1906-1912, natural gas discovered on the island was used as a fire source for the first time in the world. Nowadays, the lighthouse runs on solar energy and is controlled by a computer.

Tahkuna Lighthouse

on the island of Hiiumaa

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Construction: cast iron tower

Height from ground surface: 43 m

Altitude: 43 m

Visibility range: 12 nautical miles

The lighthouse at Cape Tahkuna on the island of Hiiumaa is a tower made in Paris in 1875, the parts of which are cast from cast iron. The Ristna and Tahkuna lighthouses were ordered at the same time. During transportation, they were exchanged and on Cape Tahkuna, which is not very important for navigation, a high lighthouse was erected, the light of which has a long range.

• Tahkun Lighthouse – about the same age as Rukhnu, and also metal, but of a completely different shape: a slender tower fifty meters high. This is perhaps the most beautifully located of the existing Estonian lighthouses - on a narrow cape, between forest and wasteland, blown by the north wind. Near the lighthouse there is a small monument in the form of a metal structure with a bell leaning over the sea: it is dedicated to those who died on the ferry Estonia, the local Titanic, which in 1994, with almost a thousand people on board, was sunk by a storm. The current washed floating debris to Cape Tahkuna, including several empty boats. The bell on the monument begins to ring when the wind reaches the same strength as in that ill-fated storm.

Tahkuna Lighthouse is open to visitors.

Tallinn lighthouse

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it is notable not for its beauty or antiquity (it was built after the war), but for its location: in an ordinary city district of Ülemiste, almost in a courtyard behind a high fence. The sea cannot be seen from its foot, but from the sea side the lighthouse itself is clearly visible and its light sparkles among the high-rise buildings.

Kiipsaare Lighthouse

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on the Harilaid peninsula, which in turn on the island of Saaremaa is one of the most little-known and inaccessible in Estonia, but perhaps the most spectacular. No, theoretically, it’s an ordinary concrete tower from the 1930s, but the location... the lighthouse is abandoned, stands in the water not far from the shore and has noticeably tilted towards the sea, which has eroded the sandy shore over several decades. All around there is solitude, wind, tall grass. Estonian local historians are wondering what will happen first: someone will think of climbing onto the lighthouse and lighting it, or the tower will finally collapse.

Sources of information:

Source 1 Unique coastal lighthouses of Estonia postimees.ee

Source 2 Shrines of the seas. About lighthouses, ours and our neighbors. cyrillitsa.ru