Kohtla-Järve

a city (since 1946) in the Estonian SSR. Located in the northeastern part of the republic. Population, 70,000 (1972). The city has a railroad station (Jõhvi) 153 km east of Tallinn. It is the center of the shale-chemistry and shale-extraction industry of the republic. Its industries include shale-processing combines, building-materials production, and the manufacture of mineral fertilizers; there is also light industry. The city’s institutions include the Scientific Research Institute for Shale, a general technical evening department of the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute, a chemical technicum, and a medical school. Gas pipelines were constructed from Kohtla-Jarve to Leningrad in 1948 and to Tallinn in 1953.

The city consists of several separate territories: the city of Kohtla-Järve proper (the Old City, the Käva region, and the Sotsialistlik Linnaosa [Socialist City]) the villages of Kohtla and Kukruse (included in the city limits in 1959), and the cities of Ahtme and Johvi and the mining settlement of Somps (which became part of Kohtla-Järve in 1960). From the mid-1960’s housing projects built to standard plans have been constructed mainly in the eastern section of the Sotsialistlik Linnaosa and the northeastern section of Jöhvi. The city landscape is dominated by many waste heaps. The city’s architectural monuments are the fortified Gothic structures of the 15th century, including church in the center of Jõhvi and a dwelling on the outskirts of the Sotsialistlik Linnaosa.