Names
Roopa (Roobas)
Rail or rut. Here: railway. Interesting word: while ‘rut’ is the primary meaning, both literally and metaphorically, it is also closely paired with rööpa:rööbas, ‘rail’ as in trains or trams, and believed to originate from a sense of ‘sticking-out-i-ness’ as in ‘pile of stones or ice’, ‘edge of ice’, ‘frozen lump of snow’, evolving into ‘track or depression in the road’, with tramlines being the nice fit between raised and sunken. Street originated with Starcksche Straße (1875) after local surveyor Robert Starck who built the street on his land near Tehnika, switching into Raudtee aaru (prob. alt. spelling of Aru, dry, upland meadow), then various versions of increasingly Estonianized German for railway track: Schienenstraße (1907-1942), Shiini (1908), Schiini (1908-1921), Siini ( 1923) till the good ole Soviet regime decided on Tiivase A. (1959-1960), a one-time Bolshevik and member of the Tallinn Soviet.
Roosi (Roos)
Rose, the flower, but also common name for erysipelas, or St Antony’s fire which Estonian folklore says could be got by being frightened by or angry with someone. Despite the tempting similarity to the antsiness of Sipelga, there is probably zero relation.
Roosikrantsi (Roosikrants)
Rosary, from rose plus (Ger. Kranz) chaplet, crown or wreath, but also the name of a Danish dynasty of Hanseatic merchants. Renamed (1944?-1989) as Lauristini J. during the Soviet occupation. Next door to Hariduse, and various interpretations have been put forward: there used to be a place of execution called Rosenkranz nearby; criminals used to tell their rosaries on the way to becoming debeaded; a Michel Rosenkrans bought some land nearby in 1643. Similarly, being close to a St-Barbara cemetery resulted in its being named Barbarastraße for a few hundred years (1575±25-1800±25), and another name was Kummerstraße, street of sorrow (1813). The result of all this is the perfect haze for popular etymology and wishful thinking. Research needed. There were actually two Roosikrantsi streets, a greater and a lesser. Enlarged, the latter later resulted in part of today’s Pärnu.
Roostiku (Roostik)
Thicket of reeds, reed bed.
Rotermanni (Christian X Rotermann)
Four-generation dynasty of industrialists called Christian <insert second name here> Rotermann, running businesses as diverse as building materials, department store, factories for iron- and woodworking, raw flax and starch processing, distilling, flour-milling and baking, macaroni, as well as trading grain, buying from as far away as Western Siberia, and trading in the salt stored in the Rotermanni soolaladu, or salt depot, today the Estonian Museum of Architecture. Various scenes from Tarkovski’s film Stalker were shot in present-day Rotermanni Kvartal, and there is now a Stalkeri käik off Hobujaama. Tallinn already had a Solaris shopping mall (opened March 2009)...
