Top 6 Things to do in Kaina, Hiiu County

The 6-floor Windtower Experience center is a concept in a whirlwind that has collected the thrilling experiences of Hiiumaa. This center offers many exciting activities for big and small. Discover interactive games, admire exhibitions, learn the local humour. For crazy adrenaline-seekers, the Windtower has the tallest climbing wall in the Baltics, 20m high. There is also a fun café RUUDI. The dishes are simple yet delicious, and a little mysterious, the ingredients are local, and our people are awesome. RUUDI is a truly lovely place to spend time at.

The long white stone building is one of the few Vaemla Manor structures still standing and in use. The building was built in the middle of the 19th century as a hay barn for the manor. Currently, a family company named Hiiu Vill (Hiiu Wool) operates here. The oldest machines (“wool wolf”, carding machines, a roving machine) have been brought from Poland. Similar ones were operating here in the 1860s. It is assumed that the current ones date back to the 19th century, although the exact dates are unknown.The family members will gladly show you the machinery, although they are meant for doing actual work.In the summer, have a cool drink in the café and enjoy some lovely moments.

The ruins are located in the heart of the locality Kaina. The church was built at the turn of the 15th - 16th century. The Gothic church in Kaina seated 600 persons and was the biggest church on Hiiumaa. The church was destroyed in 1941. Several tombstones as well as the sun cross above the entrance are protected as art monuments. A fire in the church destroyed many art treasures: the altar of the Virgin Mary, Saint Nicholas and Saint Antonio, the organ built by the father of the Estonian composer Rudolf Tobias etc. The church also served as the parish centre for many centuries. The ruins have now been conserved, the restoration of the church is planned. The trees that surround the church form a nice park, as the locals call it.

The house, built in 1839, that is located in Kaina is one of the oldest small town residences in Estonia. The composer and organist Rudolf Tobias, the founder of Estonian serious music, was born in this house on May 29, 1873 as the second child into the large family of parish clerk and organist Johannes Tobias. His first music studies and attempts at composing took place between these walls. The family left Hiiumaa in 1885, when Rudolf was 12 years old. The exposition in the composer’s birthplace provides a detailed overview of Tobias’s live and work. Rudolf Tobias’s music plays in the background as the visitors move about the house.

The Estonian Orthodox Hiiumaa Church of the Birth of the Mother of our Lord in the Village of Kuriste was completed in 1873. The historicist-style stone church was established on the island in the course of the conversion movement. The stones were brought from Riga. Icons and liturgical textiles from the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries are on display. The former priest's house is located next to the stone church. The church is the only orthodox church to have survived in Hiiumaa, where services also take place.

The museum was established by avid historian and school teacher, Volli Maeumbaed, who became its first director. The museum continues to operate in the same building, which was initially the administrators’ house at the Kassari Manor and later a schoolhouse.There are items dating from the Tsarist, Estonian, and Soviet periods related to maritime history, as well as the history of agriculture and the manors. There is also much to see outside – a lifeboat from the Estonia, the Kassari school flagpole, manor’s lawn roller. A ship’s anchor pulled from the Orjaku harbour is also interesting. You can rest your feet in the square in front of the museum under a large oak tree – here you are in the heart of the old Kassari Manor.