Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 November 12

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November 12

A mysterious place name in Russia

Having been pretty impressed by the work done on the mysterious place name in Russian Poland above, I thought I'd try a question of my own. On 18 November 1908 Edward Maitland flew with Mr C C Turner and Prof A E Gaudron in a balloon named the Mammoth from Crystal Palace in England to Meeki Derevi in Russia. (see http://www.rafweb.org/Biographies/MaitlandE.htm for a ref). Meeki Derevi is perhaps near Duinsk (location also uncertain - see http://www.ballooninghistory.com/whoswho/who'swho-g.html for ref). Does anyone know what Meeki Derevi is called today? Greenshed (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

No joy here on Meeki Derevi (or "Mateki Derevni", another common spelling in works on Maitland's flight), but "Duinsk" (Russian: Двинcк) is now called Daugavpils, in Latvia. Tevildo (talk) 08:13, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

This newspaper article has a copy of Matiland's original telegram, which gives his location as "Mateki Derevni, Novo Alexandrovsk". See Novoalexandrovsk (disambiguation) for potential candidates: Zarasai (Lithuania) is fairly close to Daugavpils. Tevildo (talk) 08:41, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Good call, the region of Zarasai is also consistent with the distance traveled (1117 or 1150 miles in the two sources). Mapcrow indicates that Zarasai is 1111 miles from London. Zarasai is right on the border between Lithuania and Latvia so the village could be in either of these countries now (or in Belarus a bit further away). The name sounds Russian, so it's likely to have been renamed since then. Specifically, Derevni is "villages" and Derevi is "trees" in Russian, I'm not sure what the first word could be. I tried using it to look for any villages around Zarasai that sound similar, but couldn't find any. It could also be that the "Derevni" part was not part of the name of the village and was just given to the explorers as part of location, i.e., Mateki village, Novoalexandrovsk. No longer a penguin (talk) 11:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm even more leaning towards "Derevni" just being a description rather than a name, since "eki" seems to be a common ending for village names in Latvia and the name has a Latvian vibe to it. However, I couldn't find the village itself. This [1] seems to have the villages in Daugavpils district in Latvia and the closest I could find close to Zarasai were "Matkunci�" and "Mednieki��".No longer a penguin (talk) 11:53, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Quote: Specifically, Derevni is "villages" and Derevi is "trees" in Russian.

Not quite. The word for tree is дерево, derevo, and its plural is дерева, dereva. The form Derevi could be a place name formed from derevo, but it doesn't mean "trees" as such. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:54, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks. Greenshed (talk) 18:28, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

What is this thing?

Could someone tell me what this thing is? It's a GE project of some kind but I don't know what it is beyond that. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 14:27, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

According to GE ( [2]), this is a machine for testing airplane engines in "tests that simulate real-world hail and ice storms, typhoon conditions, and winds up to 100 mph".No longer a penguin (talk) 14:35, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 15:18, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

There is a nice write-up about this gizmo HERE - it explains that the spherical structure is to smooth our turbulence in the inlet airflow of a jet engine under test. SteveBaker (talk) 15:25, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Steve! Dismas|^(talk) 23:45, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Singles' Day

Where did the commercialism of Singles' Day come from? Was it just an advertising gimmick by Alibaba Group that took off and added that facet? Dismas|^(talk) 23:43, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes, a gimmick started 7-8 years ago. DOR (HK) (talk) 08:24, 13 November 2015 (UTC)