Names
Tolli (Toll)
1) Customs, duty; 2) Inch. Clearly the former, named after the Tallinna Tollimaja (Tallinn Customs Building, 1786-1873). Street once known as dwerstrate (1430) suster dwerstrate (1505) (i.e. the street crossing the nun’s street), then apparently nameless until the end of 17th C. At No.8 of this street in 1817, today’s city archives and then the customs house, was the epicenter of Tallinn’s juiciest scandal, a customs fraud involving one Diedrich Rodde III, merchant, lawyer, reluctant Blackhead, passable freemason, US consul, learned alderman, potential mayor and fiscal scallywag. Attempting to alleviate the treasury’s coffers of some 100,000 rubles, somewhat more than the city’s budget, but too little apparently to grease enough palms, and the plot was out. Friends, family and nobles alike were shipped off to Siberia while, inexplicably, Rodde was simply banished to Saaremaa.
Tõllu (Tõll)
Earlier or alternative name of Suur-Tõll (Big Tõll), legendary beer-drinking and cabbage-consuming giant who lived on the island of Saaremaa and spent much of his time throwing rocks at people, notably Vanatühi, Lord of the Underworld, literally ‘Old Empty’ (but perhaps with a side-hint of everlasting greed, covetousness or soul-bulimia, see kõht on tühi in Intro) although sometimes translated as ‘useless old bugger’. Parallel to Leigeri, his brother on Hiiumaa.
