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Voolu (Vool)
1) Stream, flow, current, tide; 2) (Electrical) current; 3) Trend. Vastuvoolu against the current, upstream, pärivoolu with the current, downstream. Odd choice of name – located between Põllu, corresponding to its previous temporary (1940-1941) name of Külvi, recently-sown field or young crop, and the Tallinn-Paldiski railway line – but apparently because it was the first street in Kivimäe to get electricity. This was 1927.
Viru väljak (Viru)
Known as ‘Flea market’ (Täiturg, Läusemarkt, Вшивый рынок) in the 19th C (but see Täi), and/or ‘Russian market’ in various guises from 1791 to 1939: Russischer Markt (1791-1907), Vene Turu (1885), Русскій рынокъ (1907-1916) (see note on Russian spelling in intro) and Vene turg (1908-1939) and, oddly, acquiring its present name during the 1st Soviet Invasion (1939-1940) but under which authority I do not know, then moving on to greater heights with Stalini väljak (1940-1960), punctuated by the Nazis as Wierländischer Platz (1942), which could have been worse: although Estonia was now to be known as Reichskommissariat Ostland, Generalbezirk Estland, they could pretend they chose this name themselves. A compromise was reached in 1960 with the one-name-fits-all Keskväljak, central square, then back at last to Viru väljak in 1970. Current municipal raison d’être: tramway switch-point. This was the original starting-point of the E67, first from Tallinn to Warsaw, now Helsinki to Prague.
