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WW Passaaž
(Wassili [Semjon] Woinoff, 1877-1942)
Wassili Woinoff, full name Василий Семен Воинов, businessman and one-time owner of the underlying real estate (1910s) plus the Grand Marina cinema (which also showed circus performances, possibly explaining details below) at No.5 Mere puiestee (built 1912? to entertain the Tsar’s soldiers, later returned to the people as a Soviet naval officers’ [only] club, today the Russian Cultural Center), reputedly the wealthiest man in Estonia prior to deportation to the Urals on assumption of counter-revolutionary tendencies. Named by his grandson, one of the mall developers, Oleg Sapožnin, honorary president of the Eesti Jalgratturite Liit (Estonian Cyclists’ Union), son of Vladimir ‘Boba’ Sapožnin (1906-96), who began his professional life in a circus at the age of five, progressing to polyinstrumentalist and, later, violin virtuoso as well as friend of David Oistrakh, violinist and one-time volunteer of the Soviet Union’s wartime Moscow Home Reserves. Not exactly a street, WW Passaaž mini shopping-mall was opened after much brouhaha from the antiquities department in 1997-04-19.
Patkuli
(Dietrich Friedrich Patkul [?-1710])
Aka Dietrich von Friedrich Patkul, Friedrich Diederich Pattküll, etc. Swedish soldier and Vice-governor of Tallinn from 1707-1710. Apparently... Although his infamous and ill-fated relative Johann Reinhold von Patkul (1660-1707) – born in Stockholm prison and broken on the wheel in Poland for his part in the Great Northern War and desire to wrest Livonia from Swedish hands – may well have made him a more covert candidate. Name applies to both the steps (trepp) and the viewing-platform / belvedere (vaateplatvorm) itself on Toompark. See also Pilstickeri torn or trepp.
Kullmani L.
(Leen Kullman, 1920-1943?)
Real name: Helene Kullman, Soviet spy trained at Leningrad spy school, Hero of the Soviet Union, arrested by Germans and died (heroically) under torture. Or, by the time the Soviets had committed themselves to honoring her, they discovered she’d done nothing of the sort – simply switching sides and living to die another day under the Nazi informant protection scheme – but couldn’t back down. Soviet era renaming (1979-1994/5) of Anni.
