100 stories from the hiking route

1924 – Estonia exported 41 tonnes of smoked fish

Information

Topic

Village life and society work

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.4279650

Longitude: 27.5039883

L-EST 97

x: 6592983.2
y: 698801.7

Location

Kauksi-Aegviidu Hiking route

Before World War I, smoked Baltic herring was one of the most prominent export articles in terms of fish products. It was especially known in St. Petersburg. In the independent Republic of Estonia export decreased subtantially, mostly due to the decrease of export to Russia.
Almost every beach village in Estonia where fishing was important had a smokehouse, and Toila was no different. The 1936 map had markings of smokehouses in Toila that belonged to Isvetkov, Andrejev, Konstantinov, and Strandel. Unfortunately, none of the Toila smokehouses have survived.
Artur Adson remembers in his book ‘The Lost World: pictures from further and closer past’:

"A special characteristic of Toila was the fishing and smoking Baltic herrings into bitlings by the local fihsermen. At the beach on the high coast the net sheds stood next to smokehouses, where tens of thousands of sparkiling silver fishes were carried in and gold coloured came out and traveled to the markets: packed in white clean wicked baskets by the hundreds, thick layers of salt cristal on top and between them. And these fish were sold ten for 5-10 cents, almost all over the country. /…/ And we got this gift from the sea on our table as fresh as it could be, just go and pick it up yourself. We would go now if we could."