Names
Maakri (Carl Ludvig Macker [Mecker]) 
18th‑C dean of the weavers’ guild. According to TT, the dry-cleaners now at No.23 evolved out of the cleaning and dying company founded by the Macker family in 1820 (Carl Ludvig was first mentioned in 1769), but other sources claim the founders (same year) as Birk, a family having lived in the area since 1625. Street also home to the Jewish Synagogue until the March 9th 1944 bombing, although probably unfrequented at that time: according to the Eichmann list presented at the Wannsee Conference, Estonia in 1941 was Judenfrei, the only ‘Jew-free’ (also termed Judenrein, or ‘clean of Jews’) ‘German’ country... In 2007, a new synagogue was completed in Karu.
Maarjaheina (Maarjahein)
Sweet vernal grass. Anthoxanthum spp.
Maarjamäe (Maarjamägi)
Mary’s mount. And no jokes please. Name of summer estate once known as Strietberg or, more accurately, Streitberg (conflict hill) after, legend has it, a violent altercation between Blackheads (see Jüriöö and Marta) and Russians. Known also at one time as Suhkrumägi (sugar mountain, like a Pão de Açucar but without the tacky perroquet à claquettes atop?) after the sugar mill built by a certain Johan Gottlieb Clementz in 1811, whether as a result of Andreas Marggraf’s discovery of sugar crystals in beet in 1747, or the world’s first sugar-beet factory built at Cunern, Lower Silesia (aka Kunern, modern-day Konary, Wołów County, Poland) in 1801 or, most likely, the British blockade spurring Napoleon’s promotion of beet sugar in 1811, either way, the plant (factory, not root) failed after 26 years, was bought by one of the Christian Rotermanns (see Rotermanni) and converted to a starch and spirits factory, which burnt down in 1869. In 1873, Count Anatoli Orlov-Davidov (1837-1905), Equerry to the Tsar and great-grandson of Vladimir, youngest brother of Grigory Orlov of Orlov Diamond fame, bought the property and baptized it with its present name after his wife, Maria Yegorovna, daughter of one of the copious Count Tolstoys, and/or their daughter, also named Maria. Its Estonian name – Maarjamäe – came into usage in the 1930s (see Mäe).
Madala (Madal)
Shoal, shallow. Part of which was renamed Vladimir Majakovski until 1963, then re-renamed (1963-1995) as Nekrassovi N. during the Soviet occupation. Located in a low-lying area of Põhja-Tallinn.
Madalmaa (Madalmaa)
Lowland. New or projected street (2008) just off Tuukri. Given the latter’s former name of Hollandi, it could (and some say it does) refer to the Netherlands, in which case it should be plural, dammit: Madalmaade. And so, given the area’s slow geological rise out of the sea, we prefer ‘lowland’, and not an embarassing diplomatic error. See also Lüüsi and Poldri.
