The steam engine monument

In 1562, Walk (the old name of present-day Valga) along with the rest of Livonia was handed over to Poland as part of the ceasefire agreement of the Livonian War. The city rights of Valga were signed by Polish King Stefan Batory on June 11, 1584, based on his colonization policy. The king believed that land should be granted as hereditary property to new Catholic settlers (peasants, craftsmen, merchants) in Livonia and thereby strengthen Catholicism in Livonia.Therefore, there is a monument dedicated to Stefan Batory on Kesk Avenue in Valga, which was completed in 2002 as a joint effort of the city of Valga, and the Hungarian and Polish embassies.

The new monument to Villem Reiman (1861-1917) was opened in 2004 and its author is Mati Varik.Villem Reiman was a pastor and a cultural persona who fought for the independence of the Estonian people as a figurehead of the Estonian national movement.

The monument to the physician who studied and became a professor in Tartu was completed in 1952. The authors of the monument are J Raudsepp, A Mölder, P Tarvas, A Volberg.Nikolai Pirogov was the founder of experimental surgery, topographic anatomy and field surgery. His work made the surgeries performed in Tartu famous all over Russia and also abroad.

A monument to cold weather has been erected on the Piibe road on the outskirts of Jõgeva, where the lowest ever temperature in Estonia (-43.5*C) was recorded in 1940. The monument also highlights the most recent record of -37.6*C from 2003, also recorded in Jõgeva.

Kristjan Jaak Peterson (14 March 1801 – 4 August 1822) was an Estonian writer who is considered to be the founder of Estonian national literature.He studied in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy of the University of Tartu from 1819 to 1820. He called himself a singer of the country people, appreciated the national features of literature, and thought that the creation of original Estonian literature was possible.There is a bronze monument to him on Toomemägi, which was completed in 1983 by J. Soans and A. Murdmaa, and a high school named after him in Tartu.On the writer's birthday, 14 March, we celebrate Mother Tongue Day.Fun fact: Peterson walked from Tartu to Riga more than 200 years ago due to lack of money.

The monument to the legendary Estonian statesman and journalist Jaan Tõnisson was established in 1999. Its authors are Mati Karmin and Tiit Trummal. Jaan Tõnisson was a legendary statesman and journalist who was prime minister from 1919 to 1920, the head of state from 1927 to 1928 and in 1933, the owner of the Postimees newspaper from 1896 to 1930 and the editor-in-chief of the Postimees from 1896 to 1935. Tõnisson was made an honorary citizen of Tartu in 1939.

The monument to Peeter Siegfried Nikolaus Põld (1878–1930), the first Minister of Education and founder of the national university of Estonia, the first professor of pedagogy, was unveiled in front of the Ministry of Education and Research on 1 December 2008.The authors of the monument are sculptor Ekke Väli and architect Ain Rööpson.Under the name of Peeter Põld Day, student scientific conferences have been organised at the University of Tartu since 2008, and on the same day, the university issues a scholarship named after him.

The Monument of Nation is the oldest monument in Tartu. The bones buried under the floor and in the cemetery of St Mary’s Church were found when the main building of the University of Tartu was built on the former site of the church. In 1806 they were reburied in Toomeorg near Vallikraavi Street and the small square Monument to People, which was created according to the drawings of J W Krause and resembles the tomb monuments of Asia Minor (Lykia), was erected there in 1811. The human bones found in the course of archaeological work in the cellars of the main building of the University of Tartu were buried by the monument’s side that faces street on 20 September 1985. A case with information was also buried in the grave.