Blogmas Day 1: The Coasters of the Baltics, Explained
Rail Baltica Special
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have long been forgotten by most of the world. Weather because they have been consumed by Russia, or just too far east for “the west” to care.
However, the EU is funding a massive rail project that will change the Baltic states forever called Rail Baltica. If this is your first article, first hello, second, the topic of Rail Baltica is one of the 4 main facets of this year’s Blogmas campaign and because of a restructuring, this little adjacent bonus article got thrown in so I will talk more about Rail Baltica over the next four articles on the topic.
Today’s focus, per the title is the coasters of the Baltics. Unlike other parts of Europe, there is no major theme park or stand out coaster here. Most of these are actually Mountain Coasters we only know exist because of RCDb.
Estonia
Until May this year, this country only had one kiddie coaster to its name, Kullakaevandus. Now there are two in the same park, within a city park, in the capital of Tallin. This new coaster is an even smaller kids coaster only the littlest of kids can ride called Dino Rong (although i think it looks more like a worm to me).
These two coasters are an SBF Visa Twin Helix and a Chinese newcomer called Sinorides, who also have a spinning mouse in Argentina. They look to just be another Chinese knock-off manufacturer, but some of them have tried to become actual legit options outside of Asia.
The best part is that you can just take the ferry over from Helsinki, where Linnanmaki is, to try and snag at least the larger of the two. I’m kind of surprised main stream creators, except Coaster Dash this year, actually making the attempt. Guess the most avid of travelers aren’t the whores they seem to be?
There is also a third kids coaster, Ameerika Mäed, that apparently has been going under an overhaul since 2019-but no update has been seen since 2020.
Latvia
Latvia is home to two alpine coasters, one we have no photo of. The one we do have a photo of though is a single rail alpine coaster about 30 miles NE of Riga. It opened in 2007, which I feel is shockingly early for a single rail alpine coaster. The area feels very touristy and a fairly important intercity rail station since it has an Island and a side platform. Its name translates to Race Track.
There is another single rail coaster in the country that opened 10 years later, but has been SBNO since 2021.
The other we don’t know the name, but opened in 2023. It is located on the coast, which seems a little weird and you would think something like a Eurofighter would be the landmark there-its only about a mile from the beach. The town seems about average for a smaller European town at first glance. Nearby, you can actually get a ferry to Stockholm if that matters.
Speaking of Chinese Knock-offs, an extended Wacky Worm (or Caterpillar, per its name) rounds out the line-up of Latvia located about equidistant from Riga as our single rail, but south east in the Ogre Municipality (i.e. the middle of nowhere).
ABpark looks more like an outdoor FEC (Family Entertainment Center) with Go-Karts and a lot of scattered playground equipment and ponds. They also, at least had, a paratrooper and kiddie swing ride pre-COVID and a castle of sorts that seems to be outside the usual guest boundaries.
Lithuania
RCDb only has images of one, andno good looks at the others on Google Maps unfortunately.
Let’s start with Raubonių Pramogų Parkas. This looks like a classic road side park with a kids coaster, Kirmėlė, just because. This park seems to have a very limited season of June-August/early September because the site had a 200+ day countdown in November. There is a drive through dino safari and a “Tarzan Trail” (assuming some sort of climbing and/or zipline course) in addition to various fairground rides and inflatables, VR, and maybe riflery? It’s at a fork in the road 26 miles north of Panevėžys-which is a fairly minor city in the country only 125,000 in the metro.
Just like Lativa, the line up concludes with 2 Alpine Coasters. The one with images on RCDb, simply called Alpine Coaster, is in an area with a lot of small towns and rural roads, making the 32 miles SE of Panevėžys being a lot further than it might seem-with the county seat 19 miles further east at Utena. There might be some good hiking opportunities if that’s your thing.
The third, Vasaros Rogutės, is near the town of Birštonas, in the “horseshoe” bend of the Nemunas River. There’s a lot sites, as well as tubing, in the surrounding local park grounds. The closest major city is probably Alytus at 14 miles south, although the river easily puts a drive into the 20’s.
There is another single rail coaster that’s been SBNO (and partially dismantled) and a Jet Star 2 model in the capital of Vilnius since 2020 and 2012 respectively. The Jet Star seems to be in a park far from town though.
Conclusions
None of the kiddie coasters have their lengths-but the alpine coasters do. Caterpillar might be top 3 on this list, with the rest in the rear:
The “Ventspilis Mountain Coaster” is over 2600ft, making it the longest coaster in the Baltics easily
Vasaros Rogutės is just shy of 2000ft
Latvia’s active single rail Mountain coaster is around 1,250ft (the SBNO one is just over 1000ft)
The Utena Mountian is around 1080ft
As I said, Ventspilis deserves a larger thrill coaster-but maybe the Baltics don’t get much of summer so they just want to go to the beach for more of a chill out holiday vs for the amusements like in the American and British context.
ABpark I could see expand in a similar manor to Toverland in The Netherlands where they could easily add a mix of modern family to family-thrill rides and become the the main park of the Baltics…unless someone gets EU money to build a ground-up theme park on the site of Panevėžys’s former Air Base (smirks).