100 stories from the hiking route

1922 – foundation of the old Kiviõli Ash Hill

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.3589972

Longitude: 26.9533231

L-EST 97

x: 6583803.5
y: 667919.5

Location

Kauksi-Aegviidu Hiking route

Of the artificial landforms of North-Eastern Estonia, the Kiviõli hills have always garnered the most attention in tourist literature and reference books. The solid waste of oil shale pyrolysis, semi-coke, was first disposed to the old Ash Hill in 1922 and to the new Ash Hill in 1951. Semi-coke is composed of limestone, calcium compunds formed by heating the limestone and unused organic material.
In 1938, Osvald Tooming wrote in Virumaa Teataja: ‘Ash hill!!! The crown jewel of Kiviõli that can be seen from tens of kilometres away, inspiring wonder and surprise even in train passengers rushing by. The 70-metre coke heap has been named the second Munamägi, and it gets higher every day.’
The semi-coke was first transported by horses, later by cable cars to the crest of the hill, where it was emptied and distributed by a transporter. As the hill grew, the semi-coke transported to the top started being rinsed down the hill with water. This resulted in the formation of a spoil tip with quite an extensive, gentle foot and a narrow, steep-sided and few-hundred-meter-long even crest in the northern part of Kiviõli. The new and old Kiviõli hills are respectively 116 m and 96 m high. The old semi-coke hill was closed in 1975 and the new one in the 1990s. The semi-coke is now stratified to the foot of the new hill. The old semi-coke hill was closed in 1975 and the new hill in the 1990’s. Nowadays technology has changed and semi-coke is no longer piled into sharp-cut hills.