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Silikaadi (Silikaat)
Silicate. Soviet occupation renaming (1939; 1950-1990) of Risti, after the local building-materials industry started by one of Estonia’s Über-Ministers (Labor, Welfare, War and Roads), Oskar Amberg (1878-1963) in the early 1920s. 1.5 km from the sand and concrete materials group, see Silikaltsiidi.
Sikupilli (Sikupill)
Bagpipes, lit. goat’s instrument. Named after nearby inn. What is a shopping center today was a prison in the late-19th C and, prior to that, a hospital, but its damp limestone walls didn’t do the patients’ health much good, which didn’t seem to be an issue for the next occupants. It also had its own loop of railway passing in and out, allowing the reasonable deduction that the favored occupation of, or rather for, convicts – breaking stones – was not to provide ballast for ships to which, being a port, Tallinn naturally lends itself, but stabilizing railway lines. While local by-ways add weight to the argument, railway engineering takes it away (I bet nobody saw that one coming…), track ballast is smaller and lighter (see Pallasti). Well, it was a women’s prison... Renamed (1960-1990) as Killustiku during the Soviet occupation. One of a rock-based neighborhood. See Tuha. Alternative name of Torupilli.
Ringtee (Ringtee)
Sometimes known as Kadrioru ringtee. Road running from the NE tip of Mäekalda and looping anticlockwise around the park, through the now Presidential Palace car park to Weizenbergi A.. Still exists, but as a pedestrian path, joined by a very steep and cobbled slipway (slip being the operative word, cyclists beware) from the Valge lighthouse.
