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Roopa (Roobas)

Rail or rut. Here: railway. Interesting word: while ‘rut’ is the primary meaning, both literally and metaphorically, it is also closely paired with rööpa:rööbas, ‘rail’ as in trains or trams, and believed to originate from a sense of ‘sticking-out-i-ness’ as in ‘pile of stones or ice’, ‘edge of ice’, ‘frozen lump of snow’, evolving into ‘track or depression in the road’, with tramlines being the nice fit between raised and sunken.  Street originated with Starcksche Straße (1875) after local surveyor Robert Starck who built the street on his land near Tehnika, switching into Raudtee aaru (prob. alt. spelling of Aru, dry, upland meadow), then various versions of increasingly Estonianized German for railway track: Schienenstraße (1907-1942), Shiini (1908), Schiini (1908-1921), Siini ( 1923) till the good ole Soviet regime decided on Tiivase A. (1959-1960), a one-time Bolshevik and member of the Tallinn Soviet.

Vesivärava (Vesivärav)

Watergate, named after the lock and sluice controlling water-supply to the harbor. Odd, at first glance, but not, apparently, à la coals to Newcastle: even harbor-masters wash their hands.

Tormi (Torm)

Storm. Close enough to the sea to make sense!

Reidi (Reid)

Roadstead or roads (usu. pl.), where the term does not designate a road, but a sheltered area of sea outside a harbor where ships can lie at anchor in relative safety, similar to a bay or gulf, but deeper and with a narrower mouth open to the sea. The term seems first to have meant a safe place to prepare ships, coming from MLG rēde, reiide, rēt, rīde, etc., or Old Dutch rede(?), derived from Proto-Germanic *raid- ‘ready’ (yup, that too), with similar cognates in most ‘Northern’ languages, Old Frisian, Old Norse, etc. Runs, not surprisingly, along the southern shore of Tallinna Reid, easternmost of Tallinn’s bays. Confusingly, Tallinna laht, Tallinn Bay (see Lahe), consists in 4 bays (lahed) running west to east: Kakumäe or Tiskre, Kopli and Paljassaare bays, then Tallinna Reid. This street is part of the E67 from Helsinki to Prague.

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