Old Cement Factory

Plant area closed for safety reasons.

Getting into the city, immediately there is a feeling of absorption in the inner world of a huge plant. The main center of the city, around which there is an endless movement and bustle - is a cement plant. From here follows the main attraction of Kundy - but not the new operating plant, but the ruins of the old one of the oldest and largest in the former Russian Empire, and the ruins of its old sites made of gray limestone are no worse than medieval castles. The ruins of the first cement factory with a unique "bottle" pipe, so named because of its shape. The first owner of the cement factory was Johann Karl Gerard de Sucanthona, who started cement production here in 1870. By the way, the concrete clones of Sucanton are entertaining characters in Kunda. The brick "tower" with a tree grown inside is similar to a silo, but rather it was a clinker kiln - cement in the times of Sukantona, like oil, was stored in barrels. Now the entrance to the factory is forbidden, but it did not prevent us from going down and inspecting the factory’s ruins, as it were, in a deep hole - this is the scarp of the valley of the Kunda river. Production building - here, probably, there were steam engines and rotary kilns. Part of the factory buildings - right in the ground. And next to it, on the ledge is a dam, that is, apparently, just like Narva Krengolm, the factory Kunda grew up near a waterfall that was driving wheels, although I had never heard anything about the Kundsky waterfall. Next to the ruins of the local "town hall", the old factory management, now occupied by the museum of cement, which turned out to be closed - and inside there are models of old factories. Interesting statistics are in the museum: for example, in the 80s, in one year, twenty thousand tons of cement dust settled on a territory of one square kilometer! They say that in Soviet times the city was littered with white dust, like flour, but now the plant has good sewage treatment, and the wind from the sea helps - so it is easy to breathe in Kund. After installing the dust filters, the city became much cleaner, and the structure and functions of vegetation are slowly being restored. Although locals often joke that in their city even love is depicted in gray. The largest exhibits lie behind the office. on the left is an ordinary concrete mixer, and on the right is an old “rotary kiln”: in such clinker and other additives cement is baked at a temperature of about 1,500 degrees, during which it rotates around its axis. but it was such that they rotated in the shops of the Sukanton plants. All roads in Kund lead to the plant - in the literal sense of the word, five streets diverge from the ring at its entrance. Trucks constantly go by, either to the port or to factory warehouses.

The huge, well-preserved ruins of an old cement factory are located in the picturesque canyon of the Kunda River.

The destroyed buildings of the first cement plant, which worked in conjunction with the hydroelectric power station. It was built in the 2nd half of the 19th century. There are tablets in Estonian and English.

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