Friday, January 28, 2011

EE-70152 ESTONIA from Ellaa




~ Kuressaare, Estonia ~ (EE-70152)

@The most popular stamp in the world attached -- Shang Hai Expo 2010 ^^
Received April 2010
Thanks for Ellaa!!


For the town in Germany, see Ahrensburg. For the village in Tarvastu Parish, Viljandi County, see Kuressaare, Viljandi County.

Kuressaare (Finnish: Kuressaari, German: Arensburg) is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County. The current population is about 14,926 (1. January 2010).

Its historic name Arensburg (from Middle High German a(a)r: eagle, raptor) renders the Latin denotation arx aquilae for the town's castle. The fortress and the eagle, tetramorph symbol of Saint John the Evangelist, are also the depicted on Kuressaare's coat of arms.

The name was replaced by Kuressaare (probably from Estonian kurg: crane) in 1918 after Estonia had declared its independence from Bolshevist Russia. Under Soviet rule the town from 1952 to 1988 was called Kingissepa after the Bolshevik Kuressaare-native Viktor Kingissepp killed in 1922 (not to be confused with the Russian town Kingisepp, formerly Jamburg).



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