Island to Get First Gas Station
It still doesn't have a stoplight, and probably never will, but the island of Vormsi will get its first gas station this week.
The facility had long been in demand by tourists and locals (pop. 240). The island (92 square kilometers, and the fourth largest in Estonia) has only some 50 km of roads, but some residents needed the pump just so they could fill up canisters for lawn mower and generator use.
"I called all of our biggest consumers and I pegged the needs at 105 tons of fuel per year," Urmas Pau, the municipality mayor, told the Läänlane newspaper in 2011, when the 150,000-euro line of funding was first announced. "Imagine if you had to transport all that in canisters by passenger ferry!"
Previously the mainland town of Haapsalu was the closest place to fill up - accessible only by a 45-minute ferry route, or over an ice road in the winter.