100 stories from the hiking route

1939 – Pärnu highway asphalted in Märjamaa within the project of Olympic Road

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 58.8970549

Longitude: 24.4132905

L-EST 97

x: 6528722.2
y:

Location

Penijõe-Aegviidu Hiking route

In 1938, Japan was force to give up to right to organise the Olympic Games. This right was given to Finland. It was also good news for Estonians. The main goal was to attract as many car tourists as possible to pass through Estonia when going to the Olympic Games in Helsinki. Being part of the Olympic Road the Estonian roads needed to accommodate about 4000-6000 cars in one week. During that time, the amount of cars in the whole of Estonia was about the same. Estonian roads had never seen such transit.
Improving the road conditions was absolutely neccesary. Almost half of the Pärnu-Tallinn highway was to be asphalted and the rest of it to be made dust free. By the end of 1930’s Estonia had about 35-40 km of asphalted roads althogether.
The largest road construction works were to take place around Märjamaa. It was also decided that about 540 buildings in Läänemaa county by the side of the Olympic Road had to be painted and renovated. The Märjamaa county government was planning to temporarily hire a gardner who would give advice to the house owners on maintaining their front yards.
Although, according to the plan the construction works were to be completed by midsummer 1940, this did not happen. Due to the damages of the Winter War and the war brewing in Europe, the Helsinki Olympic Games were cancelled.