Formation Mechanisms of Stalinist Oil-Shale Mining and Industrial Towns in East Estonia: Soviet Nuclear Needs and Local Ambitions

Abstract

Planning of oil-shale mining and industrial towns Kohtla-Järve, Jõhvi, Sillamäe, Ahtme, Sompa, Kukruse, Kiviõli, Kohtla-Nõmme, and Viivikonna was caused by Soviet Union’s need for mineral resources, nuclear arms race, army, industry, and economy. East Estonian region gained strategic importance for the Soviet Union already in 1940. Although these towns were planned mostly by nonlocal architects and stately architectural firms, for instance, Stalinist central gridlines and central urban ensembles of Kohtla-Järve and Sillamäe were designed under the guidance of local architect Harald Arman. As a head of the Department of Architecture of the Estonian SSR, he processed both masterplans and construction plans of those towns within ambitious planning of oil-shale region during the mid-1940s and early-1950s. Those factors established urban planning principles and a pattern of East Estonian oil-shale mining and industrial towns.