SUURUPUI
ALUMINE
TULETORN
Suurupi, Estonia
After a late evening hunt on Friday that netted 4 tuletorns around Tallinn, Rein Sabolotny and Rein Tiikmaa from the office, showed up at the hotel bright and early at 8:30 AM. Let me clarify bright and early. It was bright most of the time. 22+ hours. Never does actually get dark even after the sun sets. Of course that's only during this time of the year. Things over in Europe seem to start later and end later.
Anyways my two guides insisted that I take the front passenger seat with a better view while they took care of the driving and map reading. I still might be able to find these places. Well this was first on our tour. Our goal was 8 lighthouses. We found ourselves driving out this old cobblestone road that turned to dirt and gravel to where we had no choice but to stop and park. I grabbed my camera bag and the three of us started hiking into the woods along a big gravel road, too rough for a normal passenger car, that ran parallel to the beach but sort of angled away from it the further you walked. And the further we went, the denser the woods got. Couldn't be a place for a lighthouse, I thought. Rein T. was maybe 50-75 yards ahead of me and Rein S. Call him back, I said, and we yelled but the guy wouldn't quit walking. So we kept following but slowly. I was ready to write this one off and go find the next one. Then like an Irish Setter, Rein T. is pointing off to his left into the woods. Rein S. and I look at each other and shrug and walk the rest of the way to where he was pointing from and there it was.
I started taking some photos from around the property which was also enclosed by a fence and guarded by a large barking dog. Before you know it, Rein T. has gone over and into the yard area and talked the people into letting us go inside.
This light was built in 1859 as a front range or alumine (ah' loo mee ney), the low light, in conjunction with the Suurupi Ülemine. How to say that, well, the Ü is like the ou of you with the accent on that syllable, followed by leh mee ney. The tall one. After we had gone inside and up to the top, I got to go out on that little balcony, we were standing near the door talking with several of the people there. A girl knew when it was built, but no one knew how tall it was. I hadn't looked at those details in the book Rein S. had given me. We guessed maybe 20 meters, but the book says 15. Only 18 above sea level.
The living quarters were in the bottom floor with nothing on the 2nd and 3rd but air space and support beams. The top floor where the little balcony is once held the light. It sat in the back of the room and had a lens on it with the lamp. The window above the door out to the balcony was the opening for the light. The lens was not there and the light is supplied by the two beacons above the door. The people talked about restoring it which may happen since that big road we walked in on was for developing the area with summer homes. Too bad, it was one very pristine place.
That dog never did stop barking.
Here's how I saw it:
SA1
SA2
SA3
SA4
SA5
SA6
SA7
SA8
OF THE MOUNTAINS
John B Caddell
Copyright 2001