Glehn Castle - is located in Tallinn in the Nõmme district on the Mustamägi slope. There is a beautiful park around the castle. The landowner Nikolai von Glen founded the park on this slope. The castle was built in 1886. For some unknown reason the baron exchanged the fertile land behind Lake Harku for the Mustamägi slope, which was covered with pine trees. From the point of view of the landowner von Glen's contemporaries, such an act seemed almost insane.
This hill had been popular already since the middle of the 19th century as a picnic spot. Apparently, the baron planned to establish a town on this site, as the project included a town hall, a post office, several churches, a hippodrome, and even a mud bath.
The castle itself was built according to the project of the owner of the territory. The landowner himself was personally involved in the construction. The main works were carried out by the prisoners of Tallinn Prison. Von Glen sometimes, for the sake of aesthetic development, played excerpts from Wagner's operas to the prisoners on the clarinet. The castle is built in medieval Gothic style.
Opposite the castle you can notice the ruins of the "palm house", which in the Baron's time was a semi-subterranean house. Baron's time was a semi-underground conservatory. Unfortunately, today the baron's conservatory is in a sorry state of disrepair. Not far from the ruins, on a hill there is a tetrahedral obelisk built in honor of Baron von Glen's favorite horse.
Nearby, between the tall fir-trees stands a huge sculpture, popularly called "Glen's Devil", although the author intended the giant sculpture to personify the Estonian character Kalevipoeg. The sculpture we see today is a copy, but the original was destroyed during the World War I, and its wreckage can be seen a few feet from the copy.
Not far from the "Glen's Devil" stands another stone giant, called in the "crocodile", which the baron intended to be a dragon. Between these two sculptures you can see a hollow, like a wide ditch. The baron planned to create a river here, which would have its source in the Pääskylä bog. The river was to flow through the park and fall down a waterfall from a cliff. However, even this was not realised, as the sandy soil sucked up all the water, and the park and the park was left with a dried-up riverbed.
There is also a building of the baron, which has survived to this day - it is a lookout tower. According to the baron's plan, the tower was to be tall enough to see the Finnish shore from it. Unfortunately, von Glen failed again: the foundations were too weak and the idea had to be abandoned. It is now an observatory. The wacky Baron von Glen made many more many other attractions in the park, which, unfortunately for us, have not survived.
