Kanuti aed (Kanut)
Canute’s garden (see Kanuti). On or by a one-time moat until 19th C. Land leased to Kanuti Gild (Canute’s guild) in 1866 to create a public garden. Used by travelling circuses and evolving into an amusement part. Next door too to the Grand Marina cinema, built 1913, destroyed 1944. For collateral damage, see WW Passaaž.
Aida (Ait)
Outbuilding, storehouse, granary, after the granaries dating back to the 17th C at least. See, for example, the one converted into the present-day Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design on the corner of Lai, or the Olde Hansa on Vana Turg. Prior to this, known as Speichergasse or ‑straße [Ger.] or Амбарный пер, etc. [Ru.] (warehouse/barn alley), Kleine Klosterstraße (Lesser Convent St) until sometime around the 18th C and at one time simply põiktänav kloostri müüri ääres (± ‘side road running along the cloister walls’, in TT but not KNAB).
Apteegi (Apteek)
Chemist’s, pharmacy, apothecary’s. Named after Tallinn’s oldest, the nearby Raeapteegi mentioned as far back as 1422. Apteegi as street name was first given in municipal records of 1611 as Apoteker Gasse, with later (1614) marginalia alters die Lütke Schröder Strasse (formerly the Little Tailor’s street). Prior to this (1389), the street was known/described as parva platea sartorum, qua itur de foro ad monachos (little road of the ‘tailors’ [see below], which goes from the market to the monks, i.e., today, to Vene), and before that (1368) platea monachorum, road of the monks, these being the Dominican Friars (see Dominiiklaste). Note on tailors... the Latin sartor indicates someone who repairs, and stitching wounds to Saville Row is as far as barbers to surgeons (cf. the red and white spiralled barber’s pole: red for blood-letting and white for bandages). So the street probably specialised in buttons and bones, leeches and breeches. Makes you glad to live in the 21st‑C.
Börsi (Börs)
Exchange, stock exchange. Once known by the name of Kilstoa kangialune or guildhall archway. German Börse (stock exchange > purse), French bourse and English purse share the same etymology, from Greek βύρσα (býrsa), hide, leather, through low Latin bursa, small bag with drawstrings (hence expression ‘to purse one’s lips’) in which money was kept, to modern-day purse and stock exchange. The story of a 14th‑C Bruges family, van de Borse or Van Der Burse, at whose house local and Venetian merchants used to meet and do business may well be apocryphal or incidental. Popular French etymology has often suggested that the bourse was kept against the groin, a notable site of physical sensitivity and awareness and, true to form, one of the earliest uses (1278) of the term bourse (Mod. Fr. les bourses) was scrotum. And where better to keep a bag containing your valuables than next to another bag containing your valuables?