Names
Trepi (Trepp)
Staircase, flight of stairs, doorsteps. Two versions: town-center version once known as Sunte Nyclawes stegel (St Nicolas’s steps), later switching to a name closer to the German heart, Unter den Linden (1890), Russified as Подъ Липовая (Pod Lipovaya, ditto) then back to Kirchenstegel (church steps) and Estonified as Väike-Niine (1913), the Trepi tänav off Harju was destroyed in 1944, and re-built, re-named and re‑opened on 20 August 2007 as Nõelasilm. Probably pure coincidence that the first part of this name relates to the Sunte Nyclawes stegel above.The other version, in Nõmme, renamed in 1940-41 as Astme, another name (aste) for step (or degree, grade, rank, etc.), and essentially a foot- or cycling path, starts with not one but two separate flights of steps, revealing, if nothing else, the dazzling excitement of place-name studies…
Triigi N.
(Nikolai Voldemar Triik, 1884-1940)
Talented painter, caricaturist, graphic designer and portraitist with an occasionally morbid bent. His 1929 self-portrait as disgruntled waiter serving up a pink inedible is probably symbolic. Born on Niguliste. Replaced Lauliku during the Soviet occupation of 1940-1941.
Trummi (Trumm)
Drum, but not the sort you play on: one of the large drainage pipes or flues used as culverts, named in 1922 after the local kuivenduskraavi trummi (drainage ditch drum or pipe) aka truup:truubi (culvert) burying the spring called Lisaku soon (see Soone) running along the central 20% of the street. Why Trummi was chosen instead of Truubi is unclear. Once also known (dates unsure) as Brückenstraße (bridge st) or Мостовая ул. (pavement / bridge st) shedding further light: while мостовая (mostovaya) originally meant ‘street paved with round logs’, and derives from ‘bridge’, it seems to indicate the engineering consequence of covering a watercourse to make it easily passable. But see Truubi. Parent street-name of a now hydrology-themed sector.
