100 stories from the hiking route

1935 – new building of the Alliklepa Swedish School

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.2774027777778

Longitude: 23.7805555555556

L-EST 97

x: 6571037.1
y: 487489.1

Location

Peraküla-Aegviidu Hiking route

It is known that the school, founded by Swedes, first operated as a private school in the house of Lisette Normann at Iiskase farm in Ugla. It had three rooms, a kitchen and an entryway. The lady of the house lived in the smaller room, another such housed the teacher, and the biggest was the classroom.
“If the weather was bad, we could spend the night there. They brought us blankets and bags for that. In the evening, we would push the desks together, lay the bags on top and that is how we slept,” Vilhelmine Sandvik recalls her time as a pupil in Ugla.
Later, the Ugla school merged with the Vihterpalu school and a Swedish class was formed. The school was threatened with closure in 1925 but this was prevented thanks to resistance from the locals. August Tõnisson from Alliklepa village accommodated the Swedish school in his home. Thus, it came a full circle – the school operated yet again in a room at a farm.
In 1930, Martha Gottkampf (Blees) came to be a teacher and in 1933, she initiated the construction of the new schoolhouse.
“The idea to build our own schoolhouse began to take form. A meeting was called at Moosi village in Jüri. They decided what each farm would provide for the construction. Johan Benström, head of the Pärtli farm in Alliklepa, gave the lot to build on. With that, the location of the school was decided,” recalls Vilhelmine Sandvik.
The construction of the school was a community effort. The schoolhouse was finished in 1935.