In 1919, in the wake of Estonia gaining its independence, land reforms were implemented under the Land Act which divided manor lands up into settlement-based farms.
As part of this, Sindi Manor was expropriated from Baron Stael von Holstein’s heir and daughter Margareta (Gita) von der Osten (1889-1944), with the land being redistributed to new settlers.
The first farm to be established here was Helenurme Farm, located on the banks of the stream running through the former estate. It was acquired by Johan Türk (1867-1932), a former tenant of the manor and its pastoral estates. The stream which runs behind the farmhouse, which still stands today, is now known as Türk’s Stream in his honour.
The area’s transformation from a scattered village with smallholdings into a proper settlement gained momentum in 1952, when the Tõstamaa Machine and Tractor Station (MTS) was relocated here to supply the as yet unmerged collective farms here with tractors and other agricultural machinery.
The former Helenurme Farm, which had been bought back from Johan Türk’s heirs by the state before World War II and was later used as apartments for staff members of the Sindi shelter, was turned into the station’s centre. The farmhouse was converted into offices, with accommodation being provided there for the station’s manager Johannes Lind and his family. Workshops and temporary quarters for workers were built in the barn and cowshed.
Over the years, successive extensions and reconstructions shaped the place into a full settlement, complete with the necessary infrastructure – workshops, garages, fuel depots and warehouses. By 1956, the first dormitory-type residential buildings had been built on the plots of land now known as Pärnade pst 10, 12 and 14, and in the following years the first single-family houses were constructed on what is now Ojakalda Street.
In 1958, Soviet MTSs were dissolved in their existing form, and on this basis the Sindi MTS was erected. Its main task was to drain the marshy and waterlogged lands of the surrounding farms. When the ‘Uus-Siht’ and ‘Kevad’ collective farms in Seljametsa and Surju-Vaskrääma were merged to form the new Sindi State Farm in 1960, the Sindi Land Development Station was also incorporated into it, with the station’s old office building becoming the farm’s central office. By 1975, a new office building (today’s municipal centre) had been built for the state farm to the designs of a young architect by the name of Ain Padrik.
In 1970, the Pärnu Experimental Land Development Unit was established on the basis of the production facilities of the Pärnu Land Development Administration in Paikuse, which was merged with the Pärnu District Association of Estonian Agricultural Machinery (Pärnu EPT) as early as 1973.
The association’s head office, which had previously been located in Pärnu-Jaagupi, was also relocated to Paikuse.
How Paikuse found its name in the maze of administrative reforms
The name ‘Paikuse’ was completely unknown before the municipal reforms of 1939 – or more accurately, it had been entirely forgotten. In the course of the reforms, a new administrative unit was largely created from the former Taali municipality (with the addition of bordering sections of neighbouring municipalities). In order to avoid confusion with Tali municipality, which was located in the same county, the Ministry of the Interior decided to give the new municipality an entirely new name. On the recommendation of linguists and historians, the name was drawn from the historical name of Taali Manor: Paicus (documented in 1565) or Paixt-Hof (documented in 1797). Etymologically, the name is linked to the Estonian word paik, meaning ‘place’.
For the local population, however, the name was unfamiliar and provoked strong opposition. Petitions were even drafted requesting that the municipality be renamed: among the alternatives that were considered were Pärnjõe, Talijõe and Suurejõe. The renaming attempt did not succeed until 1950 when the existing administrative system was completely reorganised, with counties being replaced with districts and municipalities being abolished and replaced with village councils. For a short while, the local village council was referred to as Taali.
Following various administrative reforms, the historical manor that gave Paikuse its name, the historical municipal building in Kõrsa village and most of the municipality’s former territory all ended up outside of Paikuse municipality as it is today, now lying within Tori municipality.
The settlement, which was established in the Soviet era on the former lands of Sindi Manor in present-day Paikuse, was formerly known as Sindi settlement village. Following the relocation of the centre of the Soviet-era administrative unit, the village council (which had once again been renamed from Taali to Paikuse in 1966) in 1971, the settlement was renamed Paikuse hamlet on 23 October 1975.
Paikuse was promoted from hamlet to fully fledged town on 15 July 2011 by a decree of Minister of Regional Affairs Siim Kiisler.
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