Lasnamäe (Lasnamägi)

Tallinn District, consisting of acres of workers’ accommodation, the essentially post-70s-built neo-‘Khrushchyovkas’ (хрущёвка: khrushchyovka, punning on the Russian for slums, трущобы, trushcheby), reputedly tatty, cheaply-built, paper-thin-walled, 6m²-per-person apartment blocks, although some people say actually very well built (as an aside, those built for dock workers in Klaipeda, Lithuania, in the 1960s and scheduled for demolition 20 years later, are still going strong today). Region inhabited since ±3000 BCE, site of corded-ware settlement (aka Battle Axe culture or Single Grave culture). Area used for windmills dating back to middle ages (lasn:lasna is a baker’s ‘peel’ or wooden shovel, but this is a red herring). Earliest records give Lakederberge (1370), Lakederberg (1371), or Lakeden berghe (1372), Laegberg (1697), Der Lacks Berg (1768) continuing to Laaksberg (1893) and Laksberg (1907) before being Estonianized into Lageda mägi. Another variant of the name seems to be Laagna mäe. Various interpretations of the name come to mind: