Lai (Lai)

Broad, wide. One of the oldest streets in Tallinn, with a long list of names to prove it. Initially identified after its salient residents, the nuns: susterstrate (1361), vicus monialium or platea (longa/sancti) monialium, loosely translated as “(holy) enclosed nuns’ (long) high street” (1364-1380), then platea sororum (1480). By the 1600s it was Süsterstraße or Schwestergasse and, in the 18^th C (1703), the S switched to C, Cisternstraße, a spelling perhaps influenced by the 17^th‑C reforms to the Cistercian movement in La Trappe, France. At some stage, however, contemporary records of Cistern- sonst genandt breitstrasse (Sisters’ - otherwise known as broad street) suggest locals must have become aware of the human side of their angelic nature and that, if nothing else, nuns were still broads...