Piiritusevabriku A-11, 1932: a parcel, not automatically a distillery
Rahvusarhiiv plan ERA.T-3.22.1281 names Piiritusevabriku no. A-11, with an area of 10.320 hectares, and shows four building marks in the farmyard.
Correction, 17 September 2026. The earlier identification of Piiritusevabriku A11 / property 12526 with present-day Allika has been withdrawn: it is a different plot in Maidla. Its plan and four building symbols cannot be treated as the plan or buildings of the present farmyard. The earlier research stage is preserved below. The new working identification is Allika A10 / 2067, based on the 1935 plans; this does not establish legal ownership.
Read the updated Allika A10 source check →
Rahvusarhiiv · ERA.T-3.22.2534 · Allika A10One plan, four building marks and a name that is too tempting
When you open the 1932 plan, it is tempting to think the answer has arrived. It says Piiritusevabriku A-11, gives a precise area and draws four building marks in the yard. The name is so vivid that imagination immediately starts working: was there a distillery, who owned it, what did the yard look like? This is the moment when research needs a small brake.
The plan firmly says what it can say: by then, the 10.320-hectare Piiritusevabriku A-11 plot had a built yard. Four small marks on paper matter because they show the yard did not later appear on empty ground. But the marks do not name the buildings or the people.
A-11 is not a password by itself. The Maidla area had another A-11, Keskvälja, with another property number. So we keep the full identity together: Piiritusevabriku, A-11 and property 12526. It is less romantic than one striking word, but it stops us from writing the wrong farm's story.
The name may well be a lead into local economic history. A lead is valuable because it gives us a question, not an answer. We still do not have a document saying that a distillery stood in this present yard, or that the four marks are today's buildings.
That gives the plan two lives. One is visible and certain: the yard existed. The other is more exciting and still awaits proof. We do not want to invent that second life; we want to find its next paper trail.
Plan ERA.T-3.22.1281 names Piiritusevabriku no. A-11 and gives its area as 10.320 hectares. The archival description connects the parcel with property number 12526.
Four building marks already appear in the farmyard. That establishes the existence of a built farmyard when the 1932 plan was made.
A-11 alone is not a sufficient identifier. The Maidla area also had another A-11, Keskvälja, with a different property number. We therefore use the full link: Piiritusevabriku + A-11 + property no. 12526.
Piiritusevabriku may direct research into local economic history, but a parcel name does not automatically prove that a distillery stood at this present farmyard.
The four building marks do not name the structures or identify them as today’s buildings. That needs a further inventory, photograph or building record.
The plan does not name the parcel owner or prove the location of a production building.