HOW TO GET TO TARTU?
Vasula - Lähte - Puhtaleiva village - Äksi church - O. W. Masingu memorial stone - Saadjärv - Kukulinna - Pupastvere - Kärkna monastery - Laeva - Siniküla - Alam-Pedja nature reserve - Ilmatsalu - Rahinge
95 km
We travel on the territory of two municipalities - Tartu and Laeva. We leave Tartu driving along the Tartu-Jõgeva road. The first roadside places - Aruküla and Vahi - are described in Route 2.
At Maramaa before crossing the Amme river we can turn off the main road. At the distance of four kilometres we see Vasula which had belonged to the family of Stiernhielm for more than 170 years. In the middle of the 17th century the estate belonged to Georg Stiernhielm (1598-1672) who was a lay judge at the court of Tartu. He was a famous Swedish scientist, poet and philosopher who invited people interested in science to his library making his home a welcome centre for free scientific discussions developing the ideas of Bruno, Galileo Galilei, Copernicus. In the beginning of the 18th century the estate belonged to count Dementyev, general field marshal. In the 18th century there was also a match factory.
Moving on along the main road, we see the Amme river which is considered to be the south-eastern border of Vooremaa. We travel on the south-eastern plain and soon reach the area of glacial mounds - drumlins where the road goes up and down and the farmsteads on the slopes form chains of villages. The further we move, the higher the loaf-like the mounds become, situated in the south-east north-west direction. On top of the drumlins there are fields, in the valleys - marshes and former hay fields covered with brush.
We go up and down the Kõlluste and Sootaga drumlins. On top of Sootaga the borough of Lähte and the former manor of Sootaga are located. Behind the schoolhouse of the secondary school of Lähte there is the seat of the ancient stronghold Lähte Palalinn witnessing of a settlement already in the second half of the I millennium. Archaeological excavations have proved that the stronghold had been used until the beginning of the II millennium. From the top of the hill we can get an enjoyable view of the surrounding landscape with its fields and forests. The drumlin of Sootaga is the highest in Vooremaa (absolute height - 92 m). There is an artificial lake which was formed by filling the discarded sand quarries. People like to come here to make fires on the eve of St. John's day.
1.5 km separate us from the manor of Sootaga in the west. In 1626 Gustav Adolf presented the land to the town government of Tartu which was its long-term owner.
The next village is Puhtaleiva. According to a legend the Swedish king had stopped on a farm and he was given pure bread without chaff (Puhtaleiva - translated into Estonian "pure bread") which gave the name to the place. In the northern part of the village near the road there are two old buildings - the inn and the granary. The footpath beginning at the inn can take us to Lake Saadjärv.
äksi is a historical parish centre. There have previously been several churches. According to legends the earliest church disappeared in the lake waters but in reality it was destroyed in the war of 1620. The next church survived only for fifty years (1652-1702). The present brick church was built in 1730. The present pseudo-Gothic church is a result of reconstruction and extension in 1887-1889 after the design of the architect R. Guleke from Tartu University. According to a legend a man named Andreas is immured in the church walls. The buildings of the parsonage and the local inn are also of historical importance.
Near the parsonage we find a memorial stone to O. W. Masing (sculptor E. Taniloo, 1989). The Estonian linguist and literary scholar Otto Wilhelm Masing (1763-1832) worked as a pastor of äksi (1815-1832). This is where he wrote his schooltextbooks for reading, writing and arithmetic and scientific papers on the Estonian language. We should bear in mind that O. W. Masing demanded granting of more rights to the Estonian language. He was a supporter of the development of the unified literary language (based on the Northern Estonian language). He himself enriched the literary language and introduced colloquial forms in the written language. O. W. Masing was the very first person to start using the letter "õ".
There is a narrow and deep valley of Mudajõgi which separates Tabivere and Kukulinna drumlins. The Mudajõgi river (length - 16 km) is the only river which flows out of Lake Saadjärv. On the river there is an old water mill built in 1824 at O. W. Masing's request which has also been generating electricity.
Holiday makers must be very careful when swimming in the lake. Although the shores are sandy, the lake becomes deep near the shore and in summer the temperature of different layers of water varies - the bottom layers are extremely cold and there are many ground water springs in it.
We reach the village of Põltsamaa which is situated between the drumlin of Kukulinn and the southern shores of Saadjärv. Near the village there are several huge erratic boulders which according to legends were the play-things of the sons of Kalev. Brothers had picked three similar stones. They stood in a line on the northern shore of Saadjärv and began to compete with each other in throwing stones which fell on the opposite shore.
Today the stones are almost on the same line, about four hundred metres from each other. The eldest son threw a stone (with the height of 1.3 m) to the bottom of the lake and it is easy to find it. People say that it is a very good place to catch perch. The second stone is on the shore near the Sompa corner at a distance of ten metres from the edge of the water (the territory of the lake is smaller today). They say that Kalevipoeg, the youngest brother, had been sitting on it. The stone has a chair-like "magic" shape. The third youngest brother Kalevipoeg had thrown his stone to äksi. It is a round granite boulder, three meters high with Kalevipoeg's fingerprints on it (small bowls).
The north-eastern shore of Lake Saadjärv is under a long and beautiful village - the village of Saadjärv. There are many architectural monuments from the turn of the 18th and 19th century - the manor in the classical style, the granary, the gardener's house, the distillery, the cow shed. A large park reaches the shore of the lake where we can find a huge stone called Suurkivi which was Kalevipoeg's sling stone (circumference - 12 m). According to a legend Kalevipoeg had tried to hit Old Heathen who was snoring on the shore. Under the stone beautiful fairies are hidden. As the stone is at the water's edge it was believed that Kalevipoeg's elder brother had thrown it here in their contest. The Kalevipoeg's stone (circumference - 12.9 m) is in the north-western part of the village. It has 70 bowls on it having been a sacrificial stone of ancient pagan Estonian.
When you stop at Suurkivi, you can enjoy a wonderful view of the lake with the reflection of the tower of the äksi church.
In Estonian folklore Saadjärv is one of the most popular lakes, people knew it far and wide. There are legends about the lake changing its location, the mermaid of Saadjärv washing herself, hidden treasures and underground life. Old Heathen wanted to build a bridge, he had even brought stones before Kalevipoeg could kill him with seven sawboards.
From the top of the hill we can see the spires of Äksi, Maarja-Magdaleena and Vara churches.
The village of Lammiku with its fifty people is situated near the place where the Amme river flows into the Emajõgi river. Here we can also find the ruins of Kärkna monastery. The bishop of Tartu Hermann I (1168-1248) was its founder in the first half of the 13th century. It was the largest monastery of the Cistercian order in Livonia which was extremely rich and had a strict military - religious organisation. They were called the white monks because of the colour of their clothes. They followed the rules of St. Benedictus: have time for prayer and work, develop your mind reading books. They began to build their monastery after having seized Tarbatu in 1228-1229. Building materials were brought from Tartu by boats and the Emajõgi river remained the principal connecting link with the town. In 1233 the monastery was opened. The Russian princes of Suzdal and Novgorod raided the area, burnt down the monastery which was very soon restored in the form of a fortress. In the chronicles the monastery of Kärkna was first mentioned in 1264.
The monastery was the largest stronghold in Estonia surrounded by a rectangular granite wall and a deep moat full of water. In the west there was the main gate with a drawbridge, in the north-western corner - a turret for firearms (15th century). In the north-eastern corner they had built St. Michael's Chapel. Outside the walls, on the moat there was a water-mill with water-gates, in the east - the ponds where monks were growing fish (strict rules of the order did not allow meat in the monks' diet). Inside the walls there was a keep with four wings. The northern wing contained a 50 m-long one-nave church with a two-naved crypt underground where side altars and monks' graves were. Bishop Hermann and later a Danish princess (in 1500) were also buried there. In the south a covered gallery joined the living quarters and household premises. In the eastern wing a chapter house for ceremonial purposes was built. In the southern wing no archaeological excavations have been carried out but most probably there were the refectorium, the tonsorium and on the first floor rooms for the abbot and other high-ranking clergy. The monastery's kitchen and various workshops were in the western wing. Near the monastery there was a small settlement where craftsmen and necessary work force lived. Later Cistercians founded their monasteries in Tartu, Lihula, Padise and Tallinn.
The Cistercian monastery of Kärkna was a great landowner in the Tartu bishopric and outside its borders in the counties of Järvamaa, Harjumaa, Virumaa. In Tallinn they had "a house, a yard with a stone building" where they stored grain. In Tartu they had "a yard". The monastery was also an owner of several estates.
The monastery was destroyed at the beginning of the Livonian War in August 1558. The war brought the Cistercian order to decline, both in Kärkna and elsewhere in Estonia. The rich archives of the monastery also perished.
Today the fragments of the foundations of the buildings and the surrounding walls and the moat give us an idea of the past grandeur. The courtyard is a favourite place for popular singing and performances. There is a marked route for ramblers with the length of one kilometre. You can walk or ride a horse. We recommend that you should start your trip from the farm of Pärna where you can also find a guide to take you round.
The village of Kärevere in the Laeva municipality has been known as a place where people crossed the Emajõgi river. At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century a glass factory and a brick factory were opened.
From Kärevere we turn in the direction of Tallinn and drive along a straight road with nice mixed forests on both sides.
At Valmaotsa we turn off the road - to the right of us is the village of Laeva having five hundred inhabitants. The cemetery at Laeva is of historical interest. During the revolution in 1905-1906 the local peasant uprising became serious and people demanded the expropriation of land, establishment of fair prices on timber, closing of pubs and vodka shops, change of the taxation system, etc. It was severly suppressed by the Russian troops and the leaders were imprisoned in December 1905. Lootus Tõnisson, the main leader, was sentenced to death by hanging, two others were shot and more than a hundred people had corporal punishment. The men executed by the tsarist powers are buried here and there is a monument on their grave. In his historical novel the Estonian writer Mait Metsanurk describes the hard life of Laeva people and the great famine in the end of the 17th century.
In the northern part of Vooremaa there is a river which also bears the name of Laeva. The Laeva river is 43 km long, it starts near the village of Kassinurme and flows into the Emajõgi river 1.5 km down the bridge of Kärevere.
The old Tallinn road takes us to Siniküla which is at a distance of two kilometres from Laeva. Until 1964 it was called Metsanuka. At the end of the 18th century there were the factory of potash and the glass factory of Tõrna where initially only green glass was produced but later they made specialised glass for mirrors and very good window glass, for the first time in Livonia. The border of the County of Tartu lies near Siniküla.
To the west of the Tallinn-Tartu road there are big forests - boggy, wet stands of pines, alders and different types of wetland - the Laeva moors, Peenrasoo and Varamaa bogs, Tõllassaare marshes. It is a large area bordering on the line of Puurmani, Umbusi and Kolga-Jaani in the north and forming the Alam-Pedja Nature Reserve.
As a full area, the Alam-Pedja nature reserve is most exceptional in Europe. The marshes, forests and meadows have not been influenced by direct human activity influencing ecological balance primarily because of the fact that half of the territory of the reserve was a restricted area for forty years (1952-1992) governed by special regulations: the marshland was used as a firing field of Soviet air force heavy bombers.
The following figures illustrate the reserve. There are 640 species of fungi, 461 species of vascular plants, 184 species of lichen, 32 species of dragonflies, 19 species of fishes. The reserve is a safe habitat for 152 species of birds (including eagles) and very many endangered species of fauna and flora. In spring for you can see 160-190 snipe-cocks and 250-300 heath-cocks in the Alam-Pedja reserve. There are 11 species which are registered in the international Red Book and 108 species protected by the Bern Convention. On the water-meadows of the Emajõgi river thousands of migrating birds, mainly waterfowl, rest.
Some areas in the reserve are closed for visitors: the left bank of the Pedja river in the Tõllassaare marshes, the Peterna island in the Põltsamaa marshes, the Karisto bog, the Võiviku island in the Laeva bog. Also, there are certain restrictions in other places, especially in the first half of the summer, when birds nest. From 1997 the Alam-Pedja nature reserve is a wetland of international importance protected by the Ramsar Convention.
When can a visitor see these places? The spring floods are interesting, two thirds of the reserve territory are under water. Bog-pools are picturesque especially in the Põltsamaa marshes near Umbusi, on the reserve territory the total number of pools is over 2000. In autumn the forests in the river valleys are extremely colourful.
From Valmaotsa a road which was built thirty years ago by foresters takes us to the village of Palupõhja. Through the protected forests and the Laeva marshes we reach the place where 120 people had lived before the war. They had their own traditions of singing and playing folk instruments. The village had a small electric power station. At present there are only six permanent residents.
There is another route for walking near Kirna-Madise on the territory of the Puurmani municipality. It is 7-12 km long and it takes 2-5 hours to cover it. You walk along the water-meadows of the Pedja river, rare aspen-tree, buck thorn, guilder rose groves. There is a suspension bridge and an observation tower on the route. Canoe and small-boat trips are best on the route of the Põltsamaa-Pede-Emajõgi rivers. It is 75 km from Põltsamaa to Kärevere and 25 km from Kärevere to Tartu.
After having visited the Alam-Pedja nature reserve, we return to Kärevere and turn back in the direction of Tartu. Before reaching Tartu we turn right in the direction of Ilmatsalu which has been a well-known research centre for animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. On the experimental farm cattle breeding was highly developed (the Estonian Red Breed for cattle, the Estonian White Pig breed). Three more kilometres and we are in Rahinge which was first mentioned in 1582. In 1960- 1970 new private houses and community buildings were added. Three kilometres separate us from Veeriku, one of the outskirts of Tartu
