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Harju värav (0) 
Harju gate. First recorded in 1361 as MLG smedeporte, and Lat. porta fabrorum a few years later. Interestingly, while ‘smithing’ is most commonly associated with iron (perhaps mistakenly paired with the unrelated verb ‘to smite’), both the Lat. and Eng. originally referred to skilled workers or craftsmen, as does the Est. sepp, in both cases, makers of stuff. During the late 15th and early 16th C, the gate extended some 60 m from the city wall with gatehouse and portcullis, corridor or neck with machicolations, intermediate flanking towers, second neck, and barbican with drawbridge (a small, glass-covered exhibit on the corner of Vabaduse väljak and Harju marks the spot). Beyond this was another 40 m or so of wooden bridge across a moat. The city has since adopted a more accommodating policy towards visitors.
Härgmäe (Härgmäe)
Härgmäe (Härgmäe): Ox or Bullock Hill. Another former farm name after former fortress in northern Latvia, Ērģeme, site of a battle where Ivan the Terrible’s army decisively defeated the Livonian Order on 2nd August 1560, leading eventually to its dissolution. Whether Estonian gave the name to Latvian or vice versa is not clear: Ērģeme might be a Latvian calque of Estonian Härgmäe, but härg itself is a Baltic loan word. Etymology and diachronics too complicated for my extremely modest grasp of Estonian.
Harjumägi (0)
Harju hill. Built on the former Inger kants, or Ingrian Bastion, known multiply or occasionally as Harjuvärava mägi (Harju Gate hill, 1921), горка Харьюмяги (Harju Hill hill), Schmiedepforten Anlage (Blacksmith’s Gate Bastion, 1907), Ingeri bastion (1989), russified as Ингерманландскій бастіонъ (1908) and, at one unspecified stage, as Горка у Новых ворот (±New Gate Hill). Now a public park. Right or wrong, name often interchangeable with 20. Augusti.







