Kiviõli is an industrial town in Ida-Viru County

Ida-Viru County

Ida-Viru County , or Ida-Virumaa, is one of 15 counties of Estonia. It is the most north-eastern part of the country. The county contains large deposits of oil shale - the main mineral mined in Estonia. As oil shale is used in thermal power plants, the earth in Ida-Viru literally holds the largest...

, Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 with a population of 7000 (as of 2005). The main industry is oil shale

Oil shale

Oil shale, an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock, contains significant amounts of kerogen from which liquid hydrocarbons called shale oil can be produced...

 mining, which gives the town its name (literally "stone oil"). The town is divided into two districts: Küttejõu and Varinurme.

The settlement was founded in 1922 and became a town in 1946.

About half of the population are immigrants from the Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 era, mostly Russians

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

.

Sport

Estonian Sidecarcross Grand Prix

Sidecarcross world championship

The Sidecar Motocross World Championship is an annual event, organised by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme , held since 1980. Previous to that, a European competition was held from 1971 onwards....

has taken place in Kiviõli annually since 2008.

External links

• Kiviõli official website (in Estonian)