Vana Slobodaa (0)
Not a street, but the historical name of a district whose outline is not 100% clear. Originally, a слобода (sloboda, ±‘free settlement’) designated a settlement free of certain obligations, essentially taxes and levies, often to encourage colonisation (12-18th C). Over time, they became villages, communities or suburbs (see Balti Jaam), while its Estonian translation of agul often tended, especially late 18th, early 19th C, to mean ‘slum’. Here, known in Rus. as Старая Слобода (Staraya Sloboda, old sloboda) and Ger. Russisches Dorf (Russian village), or even, by some, Екатерининтальская Слобода (Yekaterintalskaja sloboda), the settlement dates back to 1718-25 when Peter the Great decided to build what would become Kadriorg Palace (now art museum) for his consort Catherine. Requiring the employment and housing of thousands of workers: masons and carpenters, cooks and cleaners, as well as the more ‘upstairs’ palace staff ranging from lackeys to Castellan whose house, now the Eduard Vilde Museum, can still be seen in Roheline aas, from which the sloboda spread along the NE side of today’s Poska, from roughly Wiedemanni to Koidula. Peter died in 1725 and Catherine was not that interested then died herself two years later so the project sort of fell by the wayside. See Uus Slobodaa.
