Pärnamäe Cemetery

The year 1963 should be considered the actual time when the Pärnamäe Cemetery was put to use. On November 27, the first funeral took place in its 1^st section. Originally, 55 ha of Iru waste land had been allotted to the cemetery, which was not sufficient after 15 years already, as a result of which, a new plot of land was added to it with the direction towards Randvere in 1978, so that by now the territory of cemetery takes up 102 hectares. 

By that area, Pärnamäe Cemetery has become the biggest one among all the others in Tallinn and also in the whole Estonia. The cemetery has been divided into irregular sectors of different size by their sequence, the number of which reaches fifty.

Varied landscape, nature characteristic of waste land, sandy soil and the location away from major traffic and industrial centres are advantages for the cemetery. In Pärnamäe, very often 10-15 funerals take place in a day. Greenery of pines, junipers occurring here and there, also some rare birches and aspens together with the varying hills give a pleasant general look to the cemetery. It has been attempted to take that into account when designing the cemetery while having the principle of naturalness as the main orientation. Burying in straight bypaths and lines has been avoided. Rigid edges of the grave and grave monuments and constructions that spoil the general look are also not allowed here.

Construction of the office building and the house was begun in 1961. By the personnel of the cemetery the management building was built in 1962. Construction of roads and sections was begun.

In 1975 construction of the new chapel was begun, so far the chapel of Iru Retirement Home (1936) had been used. Before the Olympic Regatta the construction of the chapel was frozen. In 1982 construction was continued, in 1992 reconstruction of the chapel into crematorium was started.

Since Metsakalmistu Cemetery has been reserved as the burial place of outstanding figures in society and culture, there are relatively few cultural monuments in Pärnamäe Cemetery. Still, there are dozens of them already.

Pärnamäe Cemetery allowed to have a look at several graves of historical and cultural reputation that have been designed artistically.