Ovīšu

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

It is installed on the cape of the same name, protruding into the Baltic Sea north of the Latvian port of Ventspils.

Since time immemorial, bonfires have been burned here and day signs have been placed to protect ships traveling from the west and southwest to the Gulf of Riga. The cape does not differ in height or any other features, so it is difficult to notice it in time, especially in bad weather. Sometimes it was even confused with the southern tip of the island of Ezel (Saaremaa), which led to dire consequences.

One of the first to propose building a cool lighthouse here was JI. V. Spafarev. His proposal, based on a project for the reconstruction of the lighthouses of the Baltic Sea, was approved in 1805 by the Admiralty Department, but the final decision was postponed year after year. Then the Patriotic War of 1812 began, and the construction that had already begun was frozen.

In 1814, the Admiralty Department made another decision to establish the Luzerort lighthouse, but there were no funds for it, and construction was again postponed until “more favorable times.”

In 1829, the Riga Exchange Committee appealed to the Minister of Finance of the Russian Empire with a request to resume the construction of a lighthouse on the Courland coast, since “there are frequent shipwrecks in this place and the treasury suffers large losses.” Particularly dangerous in this area, they wrote, is the reef stretching from the southern tip of Ezel Island. The benefit of a lighthouse at Cape Luserort, which would protect both the reef and the cape, would be great, since more than 1,200 ships annually pass through the fairway that lies between them. Before the construction of a major lighthouse, petitioners asked to install at least a wooden tower on the shore in order to clarify their path during the day.

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Source: Beacons of Russia