Names
Ringtee (Ringtee)
Sometimes known as Kadrioru ringtee. Road running from the NE tip of Mäekalda and looping anticlockwise around the park, through the now Presidential Palace car park to Weizenbergi A.. Still exists, but as a pedestrian path, joined by a very steep and cobbled slipway (slip being the operative word, cyclists beware) from the Valge lighthouse.
Ristaia (Ristaed)
Garden of the cross. Possibly a poetic way of saying Gethsemane (although this probably just meant ‘olive grove’), but named after nearby lake, itself probably named after nearby Pärnamäe cemetery to which the road leads. Were things so simple. The highways authority seems to have known the road as Jäätmejaama, waste-processing station, to which it also leads.
Risti (Rist)
1) Cross; 2) Clubs (card suit). Named after Risti kõrts, local source of spiritual succor: the Cross Inn, presumably on the other side of the road. Renamed (1950-1990) as Silikaadi during the Soviet occupation. An interesting aside to this is that the Livonian for ‘person’ or ‘human’ is rištīng, which is pretty instantly recognizable as derived from Christian (Ger. Christin). This is awkward. Since we know that the word ‘cretin’ also comes from Fr. crétin (shortened from the etymologically unfortunate Lat. christianus, see Katoliku Hoov), a term first used to designate persons suffering from the hyperthyroidism endemic in the Vaud canton of Switzerland and described in Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopedia as not only deaf and dumb imbeciles with pendulous goitres and a lack of restraint towards their earthly needs, but also as guardian angels for their families. As to why crétin, the popular (and reasonable) explanation is that even ‘idiots’ can be Christian. An analogous process is not unlikely here: having converted savage pagans into vanquished wretches, the Teutonic crusaders could now look down from their castles and pulpits and refer to their new Livonian Untermensch as Christians. One Livonian endonym today is rāndali (coast/beach-dweller). Another that they used to call themselves is kalamīed, men of the fish (see Viru tänav) which also (depending on date), might have contributed to this à la JC CTA.
Ristiku (Ristik)
1) Clover, trefoil (lit. three-leaf), although the etymology from rist, cross, suggests the supposedly luckier four-leafed variety; 2) Perpendicular; 3) Grating; 4) very archaic: name for a cow born on Ascension Day (Ristipäev, lit. ‘cross day’). Once (1910-1939 [1942?]) named Oskari after local alderman Oskar Gregory, not impossibly a credit note for future back-scratching by Albert Koba (see Tarabella). Part of a fodder and staples street-name group. See Rohu.
Rocca al Mare (0) 
Name of summer estate (suvemõis, see Mõisa) of the Girard de Soucanton family (originally French Provençal; Arthur Baron Girard de Soucanton [1813-1884] was Tallinn councillor from 1864-1876 and Kunda burgomeister from 1876-1883). Apparently named after the erratic boulder in the sea nearby, and said to allude to the Venetian fort named Rocca al Mare, lit. “Rock by the sea” although known in English as the Koules Fortress, built around 1523-1540 in Heraklion (Ηρακλειον, city of Hercules) on the Greek island of Crete, hence its names in Greek, Κούλες (Koules); Italian: Castello a Mare; and Turkish: Kule Kalesi, Tower Castle). It is also said to relate to a poem written by Adelbert von Chamisso (Louis Charles Adelaide de Chamisso, 1781-1838), German poet and botanist of French aristocratic extraction, in his collection Salas y Gomez (title said to be painted on the side of the boulder) named after Sala y Gómez, a tiny (770 m wide) volcanic island 360 km ENE of Easter Island visited on Otto von Kotzebue’s 1815-1818 voyage to the South Sea and Bering’s Straits aboard the Russian ship Rurik. Its shape too, with a little imagination, could also resemble the square Venetian fortress. Rocca al Mare is Tallinn’s only Sub-district with just one street (the name of which should come as no surprise to anyone) and no inhabitants, being devoted entirely to the Eesti Vabaõhumuuseum, or Estonian Open Air Museum. What more can you say? Not much, except that a rock of that name does not seem to exist on any official Tallinn or Estonian map, list or database. If anyone sees it walk by, let me know. Thanks.
