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Kiriku (Kirik)
Church. All three addresses, Kiriku plats, põik & tänav respectively renamed (1950-1989) as Raamatukogu during the Soviet occupation. According to the 2005 (which gives a hint as to how long I’ve been working on this bloody book) Eurostat Eurobarometer’ poll, only 16% of Estonian citizens responded that “they believe there is a God”; 54% that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force”; and 26% that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force”. Likewise, the 2007-2008 Gallup poll found 84% of the population stating a “Lack of Importance of Religion”. In a world where lack of belief in god correlates with advanced civilization, Estonia is at the top of the league.
Kohtu (Kohus)
Law court, tribunal. First named Gerichtsstraße (court street) in 1882, after the Eestimaa ülemmaakohus or Supreme Court of Estonia which operated in the former Eestimaa Rüütelkonna maja, or House of Estonian Knighthood. Due, probably, to a nasty squabble with the French and others on the happy highway to Jerusalem during the 1st Crusade, German knights and other second-sons sought other sites for land-grabbing and went north to save the poor, pagan Livonians. The Brothers of the Sword and their later homies occupied Estonia from the 13th C, remaining in power through Danish, Swedish and Russian occupations, elevating themselves to Estonian Knighthood and filling nigh-on all magistratures.
Falgi
(Hans Heinrich Falck, 1791-1874)
Cabinet-maker, clavier manufacturer, Toompea craftsman’s guild elder, alderman and land-owner. Important agent in Tallinn urban development, involved in planting thousands of trees in the mid-1800s to stabilize the sandy earth, building Toompea tänav, and other incentives. First known as Falckensteg (Falck [foot-]bridge) in 1882 and moving through a variety of Russian names including, first, Фалькенштегская ул. (Falkenstegskaya), Фалькскій подъемъ (Falkiy ascent) and Соколиный спуск (Falcon descent, date uncertain, poss. a misinterpretation of the above Falkensteg [i.e. without the ‘c’] or typical Soviet repression), but also, in part, Балтийскопортский подъем (Baltiyskoportsky Rise), this being during the building of what is now Paldiski maantee. Collectivized (1948-1989) along with Komandandi under the name of Nõukogude during the days of wine and roses.
Komandandi (Komandant)
Commandant. In 1856, Hans Heinrich Falck (see Falgi) bet Tallinn governor Baron Alexander Woldemar von Saltza (1801-1884, oddly, seemingly unrelated to Hermann von Salza [c. 1165-1239], fourth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights) that he could build a road from Toompea to Paldiski within a month (which he paid for largely out of his own pocket). Falck won. Having lost the bet, Salza built this one at his own expense in 1860-61, earning its name of Kommandanten-Steg (commandant [foot-]bridge, 1882, see above-mentioned Toompea for details), later (1948-1989) purged and merged with Falgi into Nõukogude during the Soviet occupation, and renamed as Kominterni for a couple of months in 1941.
