Streetsign reading "Tallinn Streets dot com" Header

Work in progress

A pile of ro ad signs half-trashed and piled up on a building-site, to indicate the site is in construction.

Website under construction, many entries missing, no photos with the streets yet, layout not finalized...

This started with a book (last few pages under review) and so far 1514 of the 1884 articles (A to R included) entered so far, so about a just under a quarter of the links go nowhere.

Logo of the Tallinn Children's Hospital Foundation

The Book

All author earnings of A Rambling Dictionary of Tallinn Street Names to be donated to the foundation or donate here.

If anyone could help or advise as to the legal mechanism, it would be appreciated, thanks!

The Website

Not intended at the beginning, the present website is taking on a life of its own, with plans for relevant discussion forums, picture galleries and, over time, more non-streetname entries.

In theory, it will be funded by advertising relevant to people in Tallinn, to be determined.

A percentage of profits (also to be determined) to be donated to the foundation. 

Contact

Photograph of Simon Hamilton in Pikk street, Tallinn.

Apparently, a company that uses its owner's name is considered more trustworthy because they put themselves on the line.

This is me, in Tallinn this spring (2025), on a 3-month spree to check details, take photos (about 12K), explore (ave. 15K/day), and so on. I think I covered every street in Kesklinn (apart from Mõigu), most of Põhja-Tallinn and some Kristiine.

For information, please contact Simon at this address dot com, thanks!

Names

Sääse

Sääse (Sääsk) Symbol designating a Tallinn "Asum", or Sub-district.

Gnat, midge or mosquito. After the marshy hayfield it was built upon. First known in Russian as Комаровская (Komarovskaya, mosquito, 1901), another explanation springs to mind, that of the elitist Soviet resort on the Karelian Isthmus north of St Petersburg, Komarovo – where Fabergé and Leonid Andreyev, author of The Seven Who Were Hanged, The Red Laugh, etc., used to live – but not at all, Комаро́во was renamed from Finnish Kellomäki (bell hill) in 1948 after V. L. Komarov, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1936-45. The present name was acquired in 1923 along with its German counterpart Mückenstraße. A pedant or a hair-splitter (and why do I know this one?) is a sääsekurnaja, literally a gnat-strainer or gnat-distresser... And ‘to make a mountain out of a molehill’ is sääsest elevanti tegema, or ‘make an elephant out of a mosquito’. Part of an insect street-name group. See also Vaablase.

Advertise...

Your business, store or consultancy next to your street address and a percentage of your fee (to be determined) goes the the Children's Hospital fund.

Sponsorship logo top bare

Post your favorite local photo and sponsor the foundation. Your entire sponsorship goes go the the Children's Hospital fund

Wanted!

Beautiful photos of your street or Tallinn! Send them in! No remuneration planned for now, but will be attributed according to your preferences.