Cape Juminda

The cape Juminda

View from Cape Juminda to the north

The Cape Juminda ( Estonian Juminda neem ) is the northern tip of the peninsula Juminda ( Estonian Juminda pool saar ) in the north of Estonia on the Baltic Sea . To the west of the peninsula, which protrudes about 13 km to the north into the Gulf of Finland and which belongs in its entirety to the Lahemaa National Park , lies the Bay of Kolga ( Kolga laht ), to the east the Bay of Hara ( Hara laht ). The stony, outermost tip of the cape runs below the surface of the water several hundred meters further north-northwest - as does the tip of the headland, which protrudes about 600 m further west to the north.

Infrastructure

Dirt roads lead from the small village of Juminda to the far end of the cape, and there is also a large camping area there. On the otherwise densely forested cape, about 250 m southeast of its tip, there is a lighthouse built in 1937 , the Juminda tuletorn , which was raised from 24 m to 32 m in 2006 because the trees of the national park around it threatened to cover its lantern. A high radar and radio mast of the Estonian coast guard is located almost 600 m to the west on the headland, which also protrudes to the north.

history

Towards the end of August 1941, one of the great catastrophes of World War II occurred off Cape Juminda . From August 8 to 26, German and Finnish mine ships laid more than 2000 mines and explosive buoys in the sea area off Juminda. A German coastal battery with two 10.5 cm and two 15 cm guns had also been set up at Cape Juminda in order to thwart Soviet mine clearance attempts. During the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn on 28 and 29 August about 55 Soviet ships were mines, then in this sea area speedboats and torpedo boats as well as by German Ju 88 - bomber sunk and the guns of the coastal battery. Estimates of the number of people who lost their lives in the process range from 14,000 to 25,000.

Two memorials on the Cape, inaugurated in 1971 and 2001, commemorate this. The one from 1971 consists of several boulders that jut out of the water a little away from the shore and one of which bears the carved date 1941. A second, larger one was inaugurated on August 25, 2001 on the Cape; it consists of a large rock made of red granite and a plaque, surrounded by a ring of (empty) sea mines.