Potato caves of Kõlgumäe
Potato caves of Kõlgumäe
The potato caves of Kõlgumäe are located a short distance before the road junction to Peraküla, at a place that is known locally as Kõlgumäe or Kõlguta hill.
There are a dozen potato caves about 1.5 metres deep in the higher sandy mound. The caves are well preserved, and unlike other caves in the Nõva area, six of them have stone lining. There are also unlined caves.
The potato caves probably date from the 1920s when sacristan Mart Martin lived in Kõlgumäe and ran a starch factory with his son.
It was very common in these areas to store potatoes in caves dug in the ground. Since folk had access to high dry sandy hills, there was no need to build extra root cellars. A cave was dug inside of an elevation and lined with straw, sometimes stone. After filling them with potatoes, the cave mouth was covered with tree branches and a layer of straw. The top was covered with a layer of sand and soil.
Potato caves
Potato caves and pits dug into the ground can be regarded as the precursors of cellars. It is among the oldest and most primitive ways of storing food. Initially, they were only used to store potatoes over the winter.
Potato cultivation was introduced in Estonia at the end of the 18th century and in the early 19th century. Initially it was done in gardens, and from there it spread to manor and farm fields. Potato cultivation generated more income for the Germans, since it replaced grain as a raw material for distilling vodka in the early 19th century. For the peasants, however, the potato provided sustenance that helped them to endure the years when their grain crops failed due to bad weather. Peasants also used money from potato sales to buy up their farms.
Potato caves were used to keep potatoes over the winter all over Estonia. Until the mid-20th century they were common in places where building a cellar was difficult due to inadequate soil – either there was no suitable building material in the surrounding area, the ground was too rocky or the groundwater level too high.
Tips for making potato caves were still shared in magazines in the 1920s. Even if a farm had its own cellar, they still used potato caves, especially for storing seed potatoes. In some areas, the potato caves of several farms were grouped together on a single hill.
Name of Kõlgumäe
Legend has it that Kõlgumäe got its name from the fact that people were hung there during the time of the manor rule. People who died of the plague were also buried there. The Kõlgumäe plague grave is one of two plague pits that the people of Nõva speak of. The second plague pit was near the village of Tusari.