TÓNIS SPECIALITIES | A Terrible Year: Under the Guise of Plague, the Russians Conquered Estonia

The population dropped like a flood. The towers were empty. One manor in Tartumaa reported that there was only one child, an ox and a horse in the villages. According to folktales, there were so few people that if a footprint was spotted anywhere, it was given a kiss. It was 1710. The Great Plague had reached Saaremaa from the south, and had then begun its work of devastation in Livonia and immediately afterwards in Estonia.