The Viimsi Shopping Center in the Estonian town of Haabneeme is famous for having a giant boulder square in the middle of it.
There are many things one expects to find in a supermarket, but a giant rock is definitely not one of them. And yet, in one Estonian supermarket, a giant rock with a circumference of 22 meters and a height of roughly 6 meters (including the part buried in the ground) is one of the highlights of most people’s shopping trips. The rock has been there long before the owners of the shopping center drew up plans for their business venture – about 10,000 years, to be more precise – but they only discovered it when digging the foundation, in September of 2014. Workers initially intended to blow it to smithereens, but the locals opposed the plans, and it was later discovered that the giant boulder was actually an “erratic boulder” eligible for conservation status.
Photo: Nordecon
Erratic blocks are rocks that have been carved out by glaciers, carried to another location by the glacier over a long period of time, and left behind when the glacier melted. They often have a different composition than local rocks, providing valuable geological clues about glaciers and past ice ages. Estonia is home to countless erratic rocks, but the one in the middle of the Viimsi Shopping Center is believed to have ended up there at least 10,000 years ago, around the time the last ice age ended.
“It’s outrageous to destroy such a precious rock!” the people of Haabneeme said in unison when workers decided to blow up the giant boulder, and once its erratic nature was confirmed by geologists, developers had no choice but to change their plans. Finding another location for the shopping center wasn’t a viable option, as the company had already invested a lot of money into the project, so it was decided to build around the giant rock.
Photo: Nordecon
When the Viimsi Shopping Center first opened a decade ago, the boulder stood out like a sore thumb, but over the years, people got used to it, and the supermarket housing it came up with various ways of making it blend in more, such as using it as a display for artworks.
