Kalamaja

The Kalamaja district (red) in the Tallinn district of Põhja-Tallinn (yellow)

Kalamaja (historical German name "Fischermay" or "Fischermai" or "Fischermaie") is a district ( Estonian asum ) of the Estonian capital Tallinn . It is located in the Põhja-Tallinn district ("North Tallinn").

description

The city district has 8,054 inhabitants (as of May 1, 2010). It is located northwest of Tallinn's old town behind the Baltic Railway Station ( Balti jaam ). Kalamaja forms the connection between the old town and the Tallinn Bay ( Tallinna laht ), the Baltic Sea access to the Hanseatic city .

history

Kalamaja emerged as a Tallinn suburb outside the city walls during the Middle Ages . The first written mention goes back to the year 1374 (according to other sources 1371).

The Kalamajas population consisted largely of Estonians who moved from the countryside to the city. The nearby Tallinn port offered numerous employment opportunities. Many hired themselves as fishermen , dock workers , carters and carters , mouths , fishmongers and pilots . Kalamaja played an important role economically and culturally in the exchange between town and country.

In addition to residential buildings, Kalamaja also had numerous bars , inns and brothels .

In 1438 a chapel was built near the Great Beach Gate ( Suur rannavärav ) , which was dedicated to St. Gertrude . The building made of wood and stone existed until 1540. In 1545 a new church was built a little further away, but it burned down in 1571. It was rebuilt in 1602 and destroyed in the Northern War in 1710 .

The Northern War and the following plague epidemic decimated the population of Kalamaya considerably. It was only with the construction of the Russian war port on the orders of Tsar Peter I that the suburb flourished again in the course of the 18th century. Coastal batteries were also built to defend the port of Tallinn .

During the Crimean War (1853-1856) parts of Kalamaya were deliberately destroyed in order not to provide cover for the English and French enemies. After the war, the Russian sea fortress lost its importance. The several hectare coastal battery Patarei, built between 1828 and 1840, with its location directly on the Baltic Sea and two meter thick walls, was converted into a barracks in the 1860s and a prison in 1919. It has been a cultural center since 2007.

In the second half of the 19th century, the vacated areas of Kalamaja developed more and more into an industrial location. Among other things, the Tallinn gasworks and metalworking companies took their seat there from 1865 in a building planned by Rudolf Otto von Knüpffer . With the construction of the railway line between Paldiski and Tallinn, workshops for locomotives and wagons were added, which in 1880 employed over 500 people.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, the “Franz Krull” machine factory, the “Wiegand” machine and motor factory (later “AS Ilmarine”) and, from 1899, the “Volta” machine and electronics group were among the largest employers in Estonia . From 1910 "Volta" was also entrusted with the production of war weapons in the Tsarist Empire.

As a result of the population growth due to industrialization , numerous two-story houses were built in Kalamaja at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries as cheap workers' apartments. Many wooden facades are adorned with carved Russian ornaments, as well as elements in the Art Nouveau and historicist styles .

In 1913, the first Tallinn power station was inaugurated in Kalamaja. The main building was built between 1910 and 1913 according to plans by the architect Hans Schmidt in Art Nouveau style. In 1927–1929 a turbine hall was added, and in 1932 a control room and a boiler house.

Soon after the power station went into operation, most of Kalamajas was connected to the city's power grid. In 1915 the first steam tram ran in Kalamaja. In the 1920s and 1930s, Kalajama was further expanded. Numerous residential buildings were built in the functionalism style .

In the interwar period, Kalamaja continued to develop as an industrial location. In addition to numerous smaller workshops, the chocolate factories “Renomee” and “Soliid”, the matchstick factory “Lendra”, the metal processing company “Aivaz” and the textile and tobacco company “Oskar Kilgas” had their production sites there.

In the devastating attack by the Soviet Air Force on Tallinn on March 9, 1944, parts of Kalamajas were also destroyed. In 1946 Kalamaja and the adjacent neighborhoods were renamed Kalinin Rajon . The Estonian industrial plants were expropriated and nationalized. The Salme cultural center ( Salme kultuurikeskus ) was built in 1965 in a socialist style on a park in Kalamajas that was inaugurated in the 1930s .

The core of the development remained largely untouched. Today Kalamaja, with its historic wooden houses, is a popular district for the Estonian bohemians .

Kalamaja cemetery

One of Tallinn's oldest cemeteries was in Kalamaja. It was founded in the 15th or 16th century at the latest. The two oldest surviving tombstones show the dates 1634 and 1636.

Most of the time Estonians of the (Estonian-speaking) parishes of the Heiliggeistkirche and St. John's Church as well as Sweden 's (Swedish-speaking) Sankt-Michaelskirche were buried in the cemetery. In addition, some Baltic Germans found their final resting place there . The guard house with tower, which has been preserved to this day, was built in 1780. In 1863 a chapel was added.

In 1951, burials in the cemetery were stopped. At that time the area of ​​the cemetery was almost 6.5 hectares.

The Soviet occupation authorities had it completely leveled in 1964 - like the Kopli and Mõigu cemeteries . The grave books no longer exist either. The thousands of graves were completely destroyed. The historic tombstones were used as building material in other parts of Tallinn, including for coastal fortifications.

Today the area is a public park, the Kalamaja kalmistupark . A plaque on the restored chapel commemorates the former cemetery.

photos

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  Historic wooden house in Kalamaja (photo from 2001)

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  Wooden houses in Kalamaja (2001)

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  Street scene in Kalamaja

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  Historic wooden house (Kungla Street)

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  House of prayer of the Baptist Congregation

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  The former Volta factory

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  View of the new Ilmarine development on the Tallinn Bay

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  The former Patarei prison, a cultural center since 2007

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  The Linnahall event center on the Baltic Sea

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  File: EU-EE-TLN-PT-Põhja puiestee tram stop.JPG

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  Typical wooden houses in Kalamaja (Salme Street)

Web links

Commons : Kalamaja  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• History of Kalamaja (Estonian)
• Salme cultural center
• Patarei Sea Fortress Cultural Center

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ^ Karsten Brüggemann , Ralph Tuchtenhagen : Tallinn. Little history of the city. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna 2011, p. 45 ( ISBN 978-3-412-20601-7 )
3. ^ Estonian Architecture Museum (ed.): Tallinn in the 20th century. Architecture guide. Tallinn n.d. [1994], p. 49
4. ^ Karl Laane: Tallinna kalmistud ["The Tallinn Cemeteries"]. Tallinn 2002, pp. 30–34 ( ISBN 9985-64-168-X )

Coordinates: 59 ° 27 '  N , 24 ° 44'  E