Toila is a village located on the southern coast of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea. The administrative center of Toila parish in the Ida-Virumaa county of Estonia. Seaside resort.
The traces of ancient settlements on the site of
modern Toila are marked by a sacred grove on a high coastal cliff
and a sacred stone in Oru Park. The oldest stone burial ground in
Estonia was found on the site of the present Toila cemetery.
Local burials were divided into two types according to their age: II
– IV and VII – VIII centuries AD.
The first mention of Toila
dates back to 1428 (Tulis, village). In 1547, Toils is mentioned, in
1688 - Thoila (manor). The village, located about six kilometers
east of the manor, began to form at the end of the 19th century
(about 1900, Toila was mentioned). Back in 1871, it belonged to the
Toila manor, and at the beginning of the 20th century it belonged to
the Voka manor. In the middle of the 20th century, the village
received the status of a settlement.
Toila became a summer
resort at the end of the 19th century. The first dozens of summer
cottages were erected in the 1870s, and in the second half of the
century a harbor was built at the mouth of the Pühajõgi River, known
among locals as the “Kuninga muul”. In 1914, the number of
holidaymakers exceeded a thousand people, while the number of
residents was about 500 people. After the First World War, the
number of holidaymakers from Russia declined sharply, and only a few
hundred people, mainly the Estonian intelligentsia, rested in Toila.
At the end of the 19th century, Russian merchant Grigory Eliseev
(who owned a shop on Nevsky Prospekt in St. Petersburg) bought land
for his new summer residence in Toila-Oru, which was at that time
part of the Toila settlement. A palace was erected in the style of
the Italian Renaissance, designed by Gabriel Baranovsky, and a large
park, designed by Georg Kufaldt. From 1934 to 1940, the palace,
known as the Oru Palace, was used as the summer residence of the
first President of the Republic of Estonia, Konstantin Päts. The
palace was destroyed during the Second World War.