Old Kolka lighthouse
The history of Kolka lighthouses dates back to the 13th century when signal fires were made there for seafarers to be able to identify the turning point between Irbe strait and the Gulf of Riga. The horn from which a shallow extends along 6 km has always been dangerous for shipping, the ship cemetery that has emerged near it is the biggest of the kind in the Baltic Sea.
Here, on the underwater slope, there is the meeting point of Sur mer and Piški mer (in the Livonian language - the Great and the Small Sea).
The first wooden tower of the lighthouse at the top of which a fire was made has been mentioned in 1532. In the middle of the 16th century there were two lighthouses which formed a line of guiding lights along the axis of the shallow. In 1818 fires were replaced by oil lamps - the light was continuous, or as seafarers define it - hard. The operation of Kolka lighthouse was assumed by the owner of Dundage manor Osten-Sacken who received more than 3 thousand silver roubles per year for this.
During the Crimea war the British seafarers had destroyed the lighthouses, the towers were repaired in 1858 and the coast at the tower of the North lighthouse was secured. Twenty years later the tower was destroyed by the sea. A point for monitoring the ship movement and ice was arranged in the South tower.
Just fragments of ruins of the old lighthouse have survived until today.
