Names
Raamatukogu (Raamatukogu)
Library, public library, lit. book collection. Soviet occupation renaming (1950-1989) of Kiriku. While raamat is a loan from old Pskov and Novgorod Russian гра́мота (gramota, book or writing-paper), borrowed from Greek γράμματα (grammata, letters, evolving into modern ‘grammar’), modern Russian for book is кни́га (kniga, said to trace back through Danube-Bulgarian *küiniv and ancient Turkic *küinig to a Chinese word for ‘scroll’). Interestingly, while this part (loosely) of the world’s history uses birch bark as writing substrate (see Tohu), Germanic languages’ ‘book’ comes from Proto-Germanic *bōk(ō)-, from *bokiz (beech) and Italic languages’ ‘liber’‑type words from Latin librum, the inner bark of trees.
Raba (Raba)
Bog, swamp, fen. At the end of this street is the famous Pääsküla landfill, or prügimägi, garbage mountain, as it’s called with such poetic grace and delicacy.
Rabaküla (Rabaküla)
Boggy or marshy village, or village by the bog or marsh.
Rabaveere (Rabaveer)
Edge of the swamp. The swamp in question being the Harku marsh.
Rabtšinski I.
(Ivan Vasilyevich Rabchinsky, 1879-1950)
One-time Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee and, later, editor of various Estonian partisan newspapers. Name lived on (2014) on a Russian cargo ship tramping the seven seas, now wiped from the web, so perhaps part of the shadow fleet. Soviet occupation renaming (1964-1990) of Vabriku.
Raekoja plats (Raekoda)
Town hall square. Lit. council house, the rae comes from German raten, to advise, as in Rathaus, town- or city-hall. First recorded as forum (1313) then the name oddly disappeared from the records until re-emerging (1732) as suur turro (and variants, Suur turg, etc.: big market) until 1923 when it acquired its present name, with other interludes as Deutscher Markt (German market) and Schwedischer Markt or Шведскій рынокъ (Swedish market, see note on Russian spelling in Intro) to differentiate it from Vene turg (Russian market), present-day Viru väljak, as well as Neuer Markt (new market) to differentiate it from Vana Turg (old market). Until 1816, Raekoja plats was also equipped with miscellaneous devices designed to discourage recalcitrant behavior: pillory, manacles, leg‑ and neck‑irons. Mass entertainment may seem to have come a long way since then, but probably hasn’t... See Vana-Veerenni.
