Sikupilli (Sikupill)
Bagpipes, lit. goat’s instrument. Named after nearby inn. What is a shopping centre today was a prison in the late-19th C and, prior to that, a hospital, but its damp limestone walls didn’t do the patients’ health much good, which didn’t seem to be an issue for the next occupants. It also had its own loop of railway passing in and out, allowing the reasonable deduction that the favoured occupation of, or rather for, convicts – breaking stones – was not to provide ballast for ships to which, being a port, Tallinn naturally lends itself, but stabilising railway lines. While local by-ways add weight to the argument, railway engineering takes it away (I bet nobody saw that one coming…), track ballast is smaller and lighter (see Pallasti). Well, it was a women’s prison... Renamed (1960-1990) as Killustiku during the Soviet occupation. One of a rock-based neighbourhood. See Tuha. Alternative name of Torupilli.
