Urvaste is a rural parish in southeastern Estonia, and its tree once appeared on the country's own money. The Tamme-Lauri Oak was printed on the back of the old 10 kroon banknote, and a 1998 ring study dated its first year to 1326, making it Estonia's thickest and oldest tree. Lightning has hollowed its trunk so thoroughly that seven people are said to fit inside, and in 1970 the hollow was filled with eight tonnes of concrete to keep it standing.
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Tamme-Lauri Oak
Pedunculate Oak (Quercus robur) · roughly 700 years · Urvaste, Antsla Parish, Voru County
Estonians carried this oak in their wallets: it was printed on the back of the old 10 kroon banknote. It is the country's thickest tree, 8.31 metres round at chest height, and a 1998 ring study put its first year at 1326, which makes 2026 its seven hundredth summer. One tourism source says 800 years; the ring count is the better evidence.
The name comes from folklore. Tamme-Lauri is Lauri of the oak, a fire spirit believed to live inside it, which is an apt tenant for a tree that lightning has struck again and again. Those strikes cut its height to about 17 metres and hollowed the trunk so thoroughly that seven people are said to fit standing inside. Another legend claims a Swedish king's carriage lost an axle here, and the axle took root.
In 1970 the hollow was filled with eight tonnes of reinforced concrete. That sounds like a burial and was a rescue: the oak kept growing around its new core, and it is still growing half a century later. It has now outlived the money that made its face familiar: Estonia swapped the kroon for the euro in 2011.
It stands in a clearing off the Urvaste to Kanepi road, signposted, free and open all year, a short walk from roadside parking.
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