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Kõpu lighthouse
Tuuli Tammla
KÕPU LIGHTHOUSE
Age-old Kõpu Lighthouse is standing on top of the hill like a buxom woman with a red braid and a sparkling eye. Six thousand tons of stones and a height of 36 meters speak for themselves.
The story of the lighthouse started more than 500 years ago, when the Hanseatic Merchants League needed an effective seamark, as the merchants complained that ships were getting lost in the Baltic Sea. It is no wonder then, that the Council of the City of Tallinn bargained permission to construct the seamark from the Bishopric of Ösel-Wiek. The location was set down to the range of Andrusemäe hill and the final agreement of construction works was concluded in 1500. Nowadays that highest hill in Hiiumaa is called Tornimägi (Tower Hill, 68 m). But the islanders who earned their everyday living as wreckers were not as interested in the seamark as they were worried about the bounty from the sea diminishing...
(more and other sites: http://www.hiiumaa.ee/tuletorn/english.php)
