Kalamaja

This guide to Kalamaja in Tallinn centers on Kalma Saun, the wood-fired bathhouse on Vana-Kalamaja street, and a coincidence its owners insist is nothing more than that: the name sounds exactly like the old Finnic word for grave. You'll hear about the neighborhood's vanished cemetery a few streets away, bulldozed flat by Soviet authorities in 1964, and the old beliefs that turned a sauna into a threshold for weddings, births and a watchful spirit called the saunatont. Listen for the hiss of birch leaves on hot stones as you weigh the coincidence for yourself.