Home
Harusambla (‘Harusammal’?)
Not traced. Given its location in the middle of a field of mosses, clearly assumed to be one of them. But what? Possibly a conflation of h[arilik k]arusammal, great goldilocks or common hair/haircap moss, Polytrichum commune (but Karusammal:Karusambla is already used), or an unrecorded name for one of the broom mosses, Dicranum spp., whose stems fork (haru = branch, fork, prong). Possibly a mistranscription for harilik hallsamblik, Hypogymnia physodes. Possibly a vernacular for any spreading moss (haruma, to branch out). Unlikely, but maybe an accidental rendition of haruhärmik, Green Mountain Fringe-moss, Racomitrium fasciculare (rare in Estonia anyway)? Either way, to quote Asta Põldmäe*: “This small old country was frightfully mossy!”. Estonia has 558-odd varieties of moss. Discounting close relatives of the greater-, lesser-, speckled- sort, there remain 186. Of these, 67 – or one third – are called mis-ta-n’d-oligisammal (thingamajig moss). So it’s not as if they had no choice. None of them, however, is called harusammal. I cannot state with certainty that the word does not exist (all the more so since it does in this street-name) but, as black swans go, the genetics are recent. According to a bryologist at Tartu University: “Sammalde eestikeelsete nimede hulgas sammaltaime nimega harusammal ei ole.” (loosely tranlsated: “Ain’t no bryophyte plant called harusammal among Estonian names for mosses.”). One of a group of moss-named streets. See Karusambla. And not in Tallinn in the first place, but Laagri, although leading west off Möldre, so not that far.
* See Baltic Belles: The Dedalus Book of Estonian Women's Literature, ed. Elle-Mari Talivee, www.dedalusbooks.com
Hüübi (Hüüp)
Bittern. At last, we have a generic that’s also a specific: hüüp is the great bittern (not to be confused with Great Britain), Botaurus stellaris and its smaller cousin is the väikehüüp, little bittern (not to be confused with NW France), Ixobrychus minutus. Both breeding in Estonia. Part of the Lilleküla bird-name group of streets. See also Kaarna.
Harju (Harju)
Of or corresponding to Harjumaa (county, inhabitants...) in northern Estonia. Earliest records give Harien (1212), Harriæn and Hæriæ (1241) and there may have been no initial ‘h’. No consensus as to original meaning. The word is said to sound like various Finnish, Karelian, Olonets, etc., words for ridge, harja ‘peak; crest of a mountain’, ‘top of a hill or crest of a furrow’ but also and not unhelpfully ‘sandy bank or shoal’, and the overall sense is not far-fetched for a rising land-mass (see Liiva). Wikipedia and a million copy-and-pastes give “(Latin: Harria) (1200 hides)”, but I find no record of harria anywhere (bar the odd transcription of arria for area), so probably from Latin area, plot of land for building, etc., which did evolve into the land measurement are (as in one tenth of a hectare), and thus an improbable candidate. Other suggestions include the name deriving from the Hirri, a tribe Pliny the Elder relates second-handedly to have occupied north-central to coastal parts of Estonia (but might his sources have added a pinch of subconscious wildness via Lat. (h)irrire, to snarl or growl?). Question still open. Street first recorded in 1339 as Platea fabrorum, then smedestrate (1362) and smitdestrate (1363), all Smith Street, continuing the tradition through the 16th C with kannengeterstrate (also used for Kullassepa for a while) or tinngeterstrate, both meaning pewterer or tinsmith street, kannen referring more to containers, tinn to the material pewter, an 85-99% tin alloy (tricky word, MLG tinn, tin, tinne, tīn, ten & tēn, given as tin the metal, or objects made from it, or Lötzinn, solder, but clearly an alloy influenced by MLG lōt for plumbweight, see both Loode & Tina, so almost certainly pewter too), while geter, ‘pourer’ or founder, from PIE *ĝheu- also gives us English ‘gut’ and mod. Ger. gießen, to pour (but see Keldrimäe). The subsequent building of fortifications – bastions, ravelins and counterguards – buried the street for a couple of hundred years until the 1700s when cleared and re-opened as harjo ulits (1732), Новая ул. (1767), New Street (see Vabaduse), Кузнечная (Kuznechnaya), oddly, blacksmith / farrier street in the late 19th C then finally Harju in 1885. Harju tänav was the historic street most destroyed during the Soviet bombing of March 9th 1944. Arthur Ransome – author of the Swallows and Amazons children’s stories, husband of Evgenia Shelepina (Евгения Шелепина), Leon Trotsky’s one-time personal secretary and, ironically, buried at St Paul’s Church, Rusland, southern Lake District – stayed at the ‘Kuld Lõwi’ (golden lion) hotel in Harju during his period as British MI6 agent (codename S 76).
