Kreenholm Manufacture

Kreenholm was founded in 1857 on an island in the Narva river where the falls provided power, and it grew into a cotton mill employing over ten thousand people by the end of the nineteenth century, at that point among the largest textile works anywhere, with its own housing, hospital, schools and churches built around it in red brick. Production continued through the twentieth century and ended in 2010. What remains is an enormous complex of brick weaving and spinning halls, water channels, bridges and workers' quarters, much of it empty, some of it collapsing, and access is by guided tour only, which takes visitors into the halls and along the river. Redevelopment plans have been discussed for years.

History

The island between the two Narva Falls held only a small sawmill through the 18th century, used by a wealthy merchant family as a retreat, and a wool works set up in the 1820s closed in 1831. In 1856 the cotton pioneer Ludwig Knoop, a merchant from Bremen, bought the island for 50,000 roubles, and in 1857 he founded the Kreenholm company with Russian and foreign partners as a joint-stock firm of 400 shares, its charter approved by Tsar Alexander II on 23 July 1857; he ran it until his death in 1894. The cornerstone was laid on 30 April 1857, the first spinning hall began work in the autumn of 1858, and most of the original four buildings were finished around 1862, the mills of local limestone and the workers' housing of logs, with a school, an infirmary and a pharmacy. Cotton came directly from the United States or Liverpool to warehouses at the river mouth; a new spinning mill followed in 1870, a mill on neighbouring Georgiyevsky Island in 1899, and at its height Kreenholm was among the largest cotton mills in the world, employing 12,000 people (Wikipedia, Kreenholm Manufacturing Company).

What you'll find

• The brick halls - the vast weaving and spinning buildings.
• The water system - the channels and races that powered the mill.
• Workers' quarters - the housing and institutions built around the works.
• The river setting - the Narva falls and the island the mill occupies.

When to go

May to September, when tours run most frequently; they must be booked in advance and are not offered daily. Guides will say where photography is and is not permitted within the complex.

What to expect

Independent access is not possible; everything is by booked tour. Much of the complex is derelict and only parts are entered. Tours are often in Estonian or Russian with English by arrangement. Redevelopment may change access.

Nearby

Narva castle lies downstream; Sillamae is west.

Key facts