100 stories from the hiking route

1928 – Pikakose Summerhouse is finished

Information

Topic

Literature and culture

Coordinates

Long-Lat WGS 84

Latitude: 59.499381

Longitude: 25.794745

L-EST 97

x: 6597105.6
y: 601647.7

Location

Oandu-Aegviidu Hiking route

In the early years of the Republic, Aleksander Mohrfeldt, who has been called the father of the Estonian flag, and his son-in-law, Karl Viitol, an opera soloist at the Estonian National Opera, got the idea to establish a summer home in the valley of Valgejõgi River. Construction began in 1925 and they moved in during the year 1928. The house was fitted with the first phone of the local area and the first local power station was also built. Mohrfeldt’s daughter, Helmi, had a tradition that called for her piano students to spend the last summer before their final exams practising and vacationing at Pikakose. In addition to that, a large number of Estonian music and cultural figures passed through Pikakose. A room was designated for Liina Reiman and her husband Raimund Kull on the first floor of the building as early as during the planning process. Ants Lauter and Erna Villmer also vacationed at Pikakose.
“The forests at Valgejõgi gave one the option to play a woodsman completely undisturbed. I rented an old hut from Juula, an old woman in the forest. A part of Jakob Hurt’s library had remained intact in the Viitols’ house, where I came across Hurt’s “Vana Kannel” (“Old Zither”). Browsing it, I found a couple of suitable texts, one of them being “Hakkame, mehed, minema” (“Let us, men, get going”) and “Oli mul rikas ristiisa” (“I had a Wealthy Godfather”), which I took to the forest with me and quickly wrote a song “Hakkame, mehed, minema” for a men’s choir and […] “Oli mul rikas ristiisa” for a women’s choir,” reminisces Gustav Ernesaks.

Pikakose has not perished thanks to the work and care put in by the current hosts the Sundja family.

Source:
Elstrok, H. 1995. Kõrvemaast põhjarannani : Kuusalu kihelkonna kirjanduslik-kodulooline antoloogia.