Place Names
Originally, the plots of land given to the settlers carried only numbers, e.g. "Steppe 9". In the early years of the settlement, the Fürsorgekomitee began renaming the villages. These designations were reminders of the places of victorious battles against Napoleon such as Tarutino, Borodino, Beresina, Dennewitz or places of origin of the settlers Arzis, Brienne, Paris, Leipzig, Teplitz and Katzbach. Later, after 1842, the settlers began naming their own villages after their own aspirations - Hoffnungstal (hope valley), Friedenstal (peace valley) - or religious motives - Gnadental (grace valley), Lichtental (light valley). Numerous German establishments of village took on Romanian or Turkish-Tatar origins, such as Albota (white horse), Basyrjamka (salt hole) Kurudschika (drying), and Sarata (salty).
Read more about this topic: Bessarabia Germans
Famous quotes containing the words place and/or names:
“The most welcome joke to me is the one that takes the place of a heavy, not altogether innocuous thought, at once a cautionary hint of the finger and a flash of the eye.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“It is a sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one quarrel is with words.... The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)