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Ring lake, due to its not quite circular shape with a not quite circular island in the middle. Name officialised in 2023 despite numerous votes for naming it after Ants Antson, Estonian speed skater, who – legend has it – used to skate around it, or for whom the ring was dug… Lake, not street.
Ristaia (Ristaed)
Garden of the cross. Possibly a poetic way of saying Gethsemane (although this probably meant olive grove), but named after nearby lake named probably after nearby Pärnamäe cemetery to which the road leads. Were things so simple. The highways authority seems to have known the road as Jäätmejaama, waste-processing station, to which it also leads.
Raudalu (Raudalu)
No street, Sub-district only. In the early 19th C, it was called, indiscriminately, Raudalsche Straße, Raudarrosche Straße and Rappelsche Straße. While you can discern the original destination in the last German name, in Estonian it stands out loud and clear: Rapla. The contemporary Estonian counterparts Raudalu and Raudaru were after a local inn called Raudaru Kõrts (from raud: iron + aru: meadow, see Raua and Aru, but why?), aka Uerist (1798, but why’er? It sorta sounds like a mispronunication...), or Raud Arro (1725) in German and Raudorakrog, etc. (1697) in Swedish. Confusion was a no-brainer. Name changed in 1949 to Viljandi to which it also leads, if you have the time. Last word?... Arro is and was a common-enough surname and the original name may well have been based on ‘Arro’s smithy’.
Pusta A. (August Pusta, 1904-1971)
Colonel (polkovnik, from polk [Ru. полк], regiment [but also ‘crowd of girls’…], ultimately from Old German *fulkaz, also giving rise to Anglo-Saxon folc [troop, detachment], Eng. folk, and cognate with Latin pleb; nothing to do with dancing where ‘polka’ is thought to come from Czech půlka (half, or half-step, see chap. L’indéchiffrable de la langue française in Français hors de France ! by the present author) of the Soviet Army’s 8th Estonian Rifle Corps. Soviet occupation renaming (1979-1994/5) of Kahu and Lummu. See title to present tome: ‘… rambling…”, I did warn you.
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