Uus Maailm

The Uus Maailm (red) district in the Tallinn district of Kesklinn (yellow)

Uus Maailm (historical German name "New World") is a district ( Estonian asum ) of the Estonian capital Tallinn . It is located in the Kesklinn district ("inner city").

Description and history

Uus Maailm has 3,240 inhabitants (as of May 1, 2010).

In the 16th century the area was largely uninhabited. With the expansion of the fortifications around downtown Tallinn, the first road network was created. In the middle of the 17th century, the city of Tallinn sold adjacent properties to private owners. They were mainly used as agricultural land. Later simple dwellings and small courtyards were built there. Almost all buildings were destroyed during the Great Northern War . It was only gradually that there was renewed development.

The “America” inn was legendary in the 18th and 19th centuries. Nearby was the Wittenhof farm, which belonged to the Tallinn mayor Jürgen Witte. Until the second half of the 19th century, however, the area remained largely undeveloped meadow and pasture areas.

The first larger houses were not built until the 1860s. With the economic resurgence of Tallinn, industrialization in Estonia and liberal economic reforms in the Russian Empire, there was a greater influx of people for which housing was required. The construction of the railway line from Paldiski port to Tallinn in 1870 increased the need for cheap rental apartments. In 1883 the furniture factory Luther opened in Uus Maailm, which employed several hundred workers before the First World War . In the 1890s, Uus Maailm experienced a building boom. Since 1878 the area has been called "New World".

In the devastating air raid by the Red Army on Tallinn on March 9, 1944, large parts of the city district were destroyed or damaged. In the 1940s and 50s, the destroyed buildings were replaced by Stalinist structures. In the 1960s, the authorities demolished more historic wooden houses to make way for modern stone residential buildings. Nevertheless, there are still some wooden houses from the Tsarist era of Estonia (1899–1918) and the interwar period (1923–1939) in Uus Maailm . Some are under monument protection.