Toompea tänav (Toompea)

‘On the cathedral’ (see previous entry). Street originally called Die Dom-Brücke (cathedral bridge, 1865) after the wooden bridge over the then moat between Toompea vallivärav (Toompea gate) and Suvorovi A. (now Kaarli), a project driven among others by alderman Falck (Falgi). Since the bridge was long, the road was named Die Langebrücke in 1876, but since it was no longer there, it was dumped in favor of Der alte Domweg (old cathedral way) in 1879, etc., until 1890’s Большой Вышгородскій спускъ (Bol'shoy Vyshgorodskíy spusk), or 'grand upper-city descent') then downhill all the way with trilingual Karlstraße variants in 1907, a less-than-year-long stint as Nõukogude (Soviet) in 1941, back to Charles and kin until 1948 when it finally acquired its current name. Pushkin’s great-grandfather, Abram Gannibal, an African of uncertain origin who arrived in Russia as a child of 8 as a ‘gift’ to Peter the Great and rose to become general, lived at No.1, known as Komandandimaja (commander’s house), from 1742-52 while superintendent of Reval, Tallinn’s name from 1200s-1918. See Toompea.

• Toompea
• Religion

Vabaduse väljak (Vabadus)

Freedom, liberty. Built over part of the former city walls and bastions (southern part of Pommeri Bastion and northern part of the 1686 Berghi Ravelin), today’s ‘Freedom Square’ has gone through many, many changes. The sequence seems to have been (list lifted from KNAB), if order is possible, first language then most recent date order (with dashes: durations; dates alone: records), roughly as follows:

• 1938; 1939-1941; 1942; 1989-: Vabaduse väljak (freedom square, back at last in 1989. NB: väljak (square) is and sounds more Estonian than the German-sounding plats (also square)
• 1938: Vabadusväljak (ditto)
• 1923-1939: Vabaduse plats (ditto)
• 1966-1989: Võidu väljak (victory square, revamp, note space)
• 1941-1941 (yup, short); and 1948-1966: Võiduväljak (by the Soviets, twice)
• ±1921: Harju turg (market)
• 1875(?), 1910; 1921-1923?: Peetri plats (Peter’s square, after Peter I)
• 1908; 1910: Heina turg (hay market)
• ?: Puu- ja Heinaturg (wood and hay market)
• ?: Palgi turg (timber market)
• 1942: Freiheitsplatz (freedom square)
• 1913: Peterplatz (Peter’s square, after Peter I)
• 1910: Peters-Platz (ditto)
• 1907: Heumarkt (hay market)
• ?: Holz- und Heumarkt (wood and hay market)
• ?: Вабадузе, площадь (Vabaduze ploshchad': площадь = square, transliteration of ‘Vabaduse’)
• ?: Свободы, площадь (Svobody ploshchad': translation of ‘freedom’)
• ?: Выйду, площадь (Vyydu, ploshchad': transliteration of ‘Võidu’)
• ?: Победы, площадь (Pobedy ploshchad': translation of ‘victory’)
• 1910; 1916: Петровская пл. (Petrovskaya pl., Peter’s square, after Peter I)
• ±1767: Новая пл. (Novaya pl.: пл. = sq., new, see Harju)
• ?: Сенной рынокъ (Sennoy rynok [old spelling]: hay (rynok = market)

The manufacture of street-signs is clearly a good business in Estonia.

Vabaduse puiestee (Vabadus)

Avenue in Nõmme renamed only once, briefly, to 21. Juuni from 1940-1941. Before being a road, however, records* (1926) list it as Vana kindluse raudtee, old defensive railway, after the remains of the confusingly-named Peter the Great’s Naval Fortress, aka Tallinn-Porkkala defense station, a line of fortification scheduled to include (on the Estonian side) hundreds of kilometers of railway with – in addition to the cannon mounted on flatbed wagons – guns on Naissaar, Aegna, Viimsi, Suurupi and Kakumäe designed to protect Saint Petersburg from attack by sea. See Peetri and Noblessneri. Part of the E67 from Helsinki to Prague.

* Although the railway may have been 100 m or so further south...