Letters to the Editor

To the Editors:

Levi Bridges’ article, “Cycling Across Russia,” was fascinating, but I would like to make one minor correction. His speculation on the origin of the name “Blagoveshchensk” in the footnote on page 52 seemed rather far-fetched to me, since in 1858 there would have been an obvious association with Blagoveshchenie (Annunciation), a major feast of the Orthodox Church.

And, sure enough, Russian Wikipedia reports that the town was named for the Church of the Annunciation, which had already been built in Ust-Zeysk by then. Such association with feasts (and saints) of the Church was quite prevalent in the naming of towns and villages throughout the former Russian Empire, and I find it amazing that so many of these names have survived the Soviet era.

Hieromonk Alexander (Lisenko),
Monastery of St. John, Manton CA.

Dear Father Alexander:

In fact, that footnote was an editorial addition, and not Levi’s. Our source was Adrian Room’s Placenames of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (McFarland, 1996). Room indicates both your theory and ours. And yes, ours perhaps has more the tint of “urban legend,” if you’ll excuse the pun.

–The Editors

To the Editors:

“Survival Russian” (March/April issue). It’s true the Soviets did not use the phrase “Molotov cocktail” (which would have been very disrespectful). But I just have to quibble with one word in Ivanov’s column. I believe the Red Army actually used the Russian adjective for inflammable, not the adjective for flammable. They used “goryuchy” not “zazhigatelny” to describe the mixture inside the bottle.

Emily Cummins
National Firearms Museum, NRA

Dear Emily,

I’ll meet you halfway, for the truth, as is often the case, is right in the middle. During the war the Russians called these bottles “s goryuche-zazhigatelnoy smesyu.” This is how it is written in all history or fiction books about the war. Yet it is rather typical for us to abridge this as “s goryuchey smesju.”

That’s the kind of “milkshake” we were serving the Germans.

Yours,
Mikhail Ivanov

Correction & Explanation:

In our March/April issue, in the article on Spring Rites, St. Peter’s Day is said to fall on July 12 old style. That should have read “new style.” Also, the holiday Radunitsa can be spelled differently (i.e. as Radonitsa), depending on where one is in the Russian-speaking world. The spelling we used is the one employed in the folklore world.

–The Editors