Dear Readers:
Yesterday (Tuesday the 23rd) the Russian Ministry of Defense officially announced the Grand Opening of the Nikolaev offensive! With much fanfare they announced that Russian troops had crossed the administrative border of the Nikolaev Oblast and set foot on actual Nikolaev soil!
I have this piece by reporter Alyona Zadorozhnaya. One of the commenters jokes: “The Russians got tired of waiting for the Ukrainian counter-offensive. So they said, Never mind, we’ll just do it ourselves.” The reporter quotes political pundit Larisa Shesler: “Russia has factually occupied a Platzdarm on the right bank of the Ingulets River. Our troops now have the possibility to develop their offensive operation against Nikolaev.” If you look at the map below, the Ingulets River is that thing that runs through the town of Snegirovka (Ukrainian Snihurivka). The Right Bank, as I have explained before, is the Western side of the river. [Counter-intuitive, I know, but recall that right-left bank refers to the POV of the river as it heads from its source to its egress. Since the river runs from North to South, its Right Bank is the Western side.]
Shesler: “Nikolaev is a very important point on the front line. Huge forces of the Ukrainian army are currently concentrated there. The populated points of Alexandrovka and Blagodatnoe, already occupied by Russian troops, are located to the North of Nikolaev, not far from Snegirevka, which the Russian armed forces have controlled since March. Generally speaking, the Snegirevka region is under constant bombardment from the Ukrainian forces.”
Recall that Shesler herself hails from Nikolaev and even used to be a deputy in the Ukrainian Soviet there, so she knows the area and the people quite well. “Nikolaev is also important in that, it is from there that we see the constant attacks against Kherson, the Antonov Bridge, and Energodar. Moreoever, it is crucial, as soon as possible to cut Ukraine off from all its sea ports. And the capture of Nikolaev will help us quite a lot in that task.”
This map shows the basics of the geographical layout. Nikolaev is “Mykolaiv” in the Ukrainian spelling.
Linguistics sidebar: Some readers have asked me before why the Ukrainians call this town Mykolaiv with an initial M. The answer is: I honestly don’t know. I did some research on the internet, but can’t find the answer. Anybody out there who can help with that?
It’s not like the Ukrainian language doesn’t have its own letter N, or even words that start with the letter N. I wondered if perhaps all names that start with the letter N switch it to M. But that’s not the case either. I googled “Ukrainian names that start with the letter N” and came up with girls names such as Nastasiya and even one boy’s name, Nykyfor. In other words, I think it’s just this one name, Nicholas (Mykola), which has this problem, where the Ukrainians decided, for whatever reason, to switch out the N- for an M-. The original name is from the Greek, of course, Νικόλαος (Nikolaos) meaning “victory of the people”, derived from Greek νίκη (nike) meaning “victory” and λαός (laos) meaning “people”. More directly, the city was named by Russian Count Potemkin after Saint Nicholas, who was the patron saint of sailors. In conclusion, my best (educated) guess is this: That the Mykolaiv pronunciation of the name just came from some random (Surzhyk?) dialect and came to be the accepted pronunciation by at least some of the non-Russian-speaking locals (?) I dunno…
Anyhow, back to our story: Shesler points out that the Russian/Allied forces have carved themselves a very sweet position after they crossed the Nikolaev administrative border and took control of 12 square kilometers of territory. That doesn’t sound like much, but, as an experienced Armchair General myself, I have learned that quantity doesn’t always matter, it’s all about LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION!
A very militant Shesler continues with her prognostications: “After the taking of Nikolaev, the road to Odessa is open for Russia. Moreover, Nikolaev stands on the stripe connecting Mariupol with Transnistria. And control over this area will also secure our Crimea grouping from the constant [Ukrainian] shelling.”
Awful Avalanche 
LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION. !. I just about spit my coffee out, you’ve given me a good start to the day, thanks – god knows, we’ll all need a bit of a laugh in these times..
It’s interesting that the allies are pursuing operations on all three fronts, more aggressive maneuvers in the Kharkov area (I still think that’s a fixing operation, but we’ll see), continuous slow pressure in the Donbass, and now maybe the beginning of the transition to landlocked status for Ukraine.
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I wasn’t completely kidding about becoming an armchair general. In following this war, I have learned so much (special shout-out to Brian Berletic of the New Atlas) how things really work on the strategic level. If not for that, I would be falling for the same fallacies as the hoi-polloi. For example, you will see people sneer, something like, “In 6 months they only moved forward 5 kilometers… At this rate, it will take them 100 years to reach Kiev.”
As if it were a linear function and every kilometer equals every other kilometer. Just like Achilles never catches up with the tortoise, so too the Red Army is still trudging on its way to Berlin!
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I’d recommend being careful with Brian Berletic, Yalensis. You need to listen to him very critically and believe very selectively. Treat anything he claims with a pinch of salt unless it can be independently verified. Yes, he often says what we want to hear, but he also believes what he is politiically biased to believe, even when a mammoth mountain of well-known evidence shows otherwise. He makes some good points, but is not very professional as a journalist.
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Thanks for that observation, BM. I realize that Berletic, as an American expat, has his own political axes to grind, and that is bound to color his thinking. I think where he is at his best, where he documents and summarizes mountains of facts, like the number of tanks, javelins, drones, etc. When he compares actual numbers, say, of Russian vs Ukrainian tanks, then it really helps to put in perspective, when you see MSNBC rejoicing over the destruction of some isolated Russian tank out in the field. Also helped me to grasp the difference between a minor tactical victory (like Ukrainian drones destroying one Russian tank, say) versus a major strategic victory, like, for example, Russians taking Mariupol!
These are just basic things, obviously, and I don’t follow him slavishly, but I feel he did help me learn how better to look at those sorts of things when reading news from the front. Including being more skeptcial about some of the Russian claims, ironically.
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I’m not sure, but changing a -n with an -m is probably a mechanism of linguistics called metathesis.
I’m always fascinated by the way words and meanings are changed and/or corrupted.
In my grandma’s slang , a big mess was a “rabadan”. This came after the Amba Aradam massacre, when in ’36 fascist Italy invaded Ethiopia in order to make its own colonial empire as much as the other A-class European states, hence in order to relieve the inferiority complex that Italian ruling classes , whatever their flag, have always had towards neighbours on the political side.
General Badoglio won the battle for Mussolini using chemical gas, then after ’43, when the king dismissed the Dux, the king gave him the task to switch side and start the collaboration with the Allied forces.
There must be a name as well when a part takes the meaning of the whole, so for instance in my area dialect Gipsies are called “strolegh”, which is the corruption of “astrologo” ( astrologist), as you know they used to tell the future etc etc.
Back in the days that in Italy existed a left, a linguistic particularity of Italian was that “comrade /camerata” was the name for fascist fellows, while for socialists, commies, anarchists and so on fellows the name was “compagno” , from the latin cum- :together , and panis- : bread , so “the fellow with whom you share the bread”.
I hope I remember them correctly, but a long time ago, when along with a band I was gigging around the Veneto region, our keyboardist had a Russian girlfriend who taught us, apart from spaziba and nyet whose meaning quite everybody knows, a couple of new Russian words that we found marvelous : baraban for drums and barabantchik for drummer.
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Fascinating, thanks, lou!
By the way, in Russian gypsies are called tsygane
I think it must be the same in Italian (or similar), basing my opinion on the lyrics of the famous “Anvil Chorus” in Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore, where the gypsy blacksmiths call lady gypsies Zingarella.
[GYPSIES]
Vedi! Le fosche notturne spoglie
De’ cieli sveste l’immensa volta;
Sembra una vedova che alfin si toglie
I bruni panni ond’era involta
All’opra! all’opra!
Dàgli, martella
Chi del gitano i giorni abbella?
La zingarella!
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Exactly, zingaro : gypsy male – zingara : gipsy female, then if you add to the basic word the suffix -ella ,as in zingarella, the meaning becomes “tiny, lovely gypsy female”, if you add -ona the meaning becomes “big gypsy woman ” , -otta the meaning becomes “funny gypsy woman” etc etc.
Verdi’s lyrics are in an archaic, poetic Italian, nevertheless zingaro was the average Italian term for Gypsies and everybody, including Italian Gypsies , felt comfortable with it for centuries, until the neopuritans of political correctness started complaining that it was wrong and that the correct word was Rom for Roms and Sinti for Sintis.
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I will tell ya – gypsies are a criminal enterprise the world over.
That is what they are. This what they do. Much like the jews.
Except – stupid and violent.
The jews buy up the politicians first.
Then they collect rent, destroy Your life, job and prostitute You Daughter and wife.
Then the jews employ the fucking gypsies. Footsoldiers back when in Europe. Now, we do not even need gypos – we have niggers.
Billions.
We good.
Plenty. We ship em by the thousands.
Look up the Weimar Republic.
Am I lying?
Am I?
Hi! barabanchik. HI!!!
Ya fucking simpleton.
Oh my god…
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So Yo people want to live with niggers, gypsies and jews – and want to fight ukranian nazis…by killing Russians.
Do I have this right?
😁
I am moving to Mongolia.
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A modest proposal:
Once Nikolaev is under Russian control, the Ukronazis have been pushed out of artillery range and schools can reopen, the new education authorities throughout Russian-controlled Novorossiya should announce — with completely straight faces — ‘a “special education” speech-therapy project,’ to address the ‘well-described speech impediments “surzhiglossia” and “galichnoglossia,” which our teachers report are widespread throughout the region.’
The press release continues:
‘These speech disorders result in characteristic mispronunciation patterns similar those associated with developmental problems, such as cleft palate, naziism and white supremacy.
‘Sufferers may, for example, mispronounce the municipality Snegirovka as “snihurivka,” or Nikolaev as “mykolaiv.” ‘
When westerners’ heads start exploding, somebody higher up – like the RF education minister – could loudly endorse this special-ed project, pointing out that if you really think somebody’s speech is a problem, you should devote the resources to try to solve it, instead of merely ‘banning’ the problem, as Kiev attempted in 2014.
Again, maintaining a straight face will be crucial. I don’t know anything about the education minister, but he can’t suppress a smirk, I reckon Zakharova can pull it off completely deadpan.
In this hybrid war, ridicule can be a deadly weapon in its own right.
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That’s funny!
🙂
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Awful Avalanche, you have the best and smartest comments box on the net.
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You’re a darlin’, raccoon!
🙂
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Except for Buratino!
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I am ok with Mikholayev.
As long as there is no shelling and rocketing of Donetsk.
Big if true. No reports of incoming on the civvies.
A load off…
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I mean – I have hoping for this since 2014…
Huge. if it has stabilised.
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Do You know of Scott Ritter?
some of ya might…
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Thanks for link, Scott Ritter is always worth listening to!
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But Mr Y!!!
What do You do with these retards?
Why do Ya do what You do – when all You get is retards in return?
Why do it man?
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Do you want to tell them something, they may not know from factchecking their stup, algorithm or do You just want someone to argue with about the etymology of mykolayev?
What are you doing?
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Hey, buratino, can I ask you a big huge favor?
Can you please just go away?
And not come back?
Please?
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Unfortunately, I think it is time to prevent the sewer from entering the building.
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Make that sewage…
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Seconded. Sewage = toxins.
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He says he’s moving to Mongolia, though that’s probably a lie. If we’re lucky, he won’t have internet access there. Thanks for giving him more than a ‘hint’ just as I expected.
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Hate speech per se doesn’t bother me, like those types, you know who I mean, who present some pseudo-scientific arguments, using charts and graphs on IQ scores, that sort of thing… In truth, that’s what I thought he was going to come up with, when I “encouraged” him to stop using Aesopian language and just express his actual opinions. But that’s somewhat different from just running around like a maniac screaming “nigga nigga nigga!”
Anyhow, I just feel like this fella wasn’t contributing to the discussion in a constructive way. I mean, he sort of crossed a red line, here I was trying to have a nice chat with Lou about Italian grand opera, like two civilized people do… I imagined us sitting in a loge at the Milan Opera House watching an excellent production of Il Trovatore, they are just starting up with the Anvil Chorus; and suddenly some maniac heckler starts running around in the mezzanine screaming “Niggers jews and gypsies!”
egads what a scandal…
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Perhaps the Ukrainians are a perverse bunch of fruits and nuts and changed the name from Nicholas to Michael as is their want https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=michael+in+russian&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
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Good guess, but I don’t think that’s it. They have a different word for the name Michael which is Mykhailo, like Russian Mikhail. Also the Nikola to Mykola thing happened in the past, maybe even centuries ago, although I could not give you an exact chronology.
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Without knowing more than he few words mentioned here, the differences sound more like between dialects. Compare the Bavarian dialect (the real one, from deep in the mountains) to the “high german”, and some of it is simply incomprehensible to one only having learned the latter. Example: the word “habe”, to have, in Bavarian in “hob”, or “wir gehen”, we go is “goange mo”…or so
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PS: It even gets worse farther north. There is some literature in “Bavarian” (Bayrische Mundart) and in the North German Dialects (Plattduetsch) available. Whereas I can read and understand most of the Bavarian
writings, I have real difficulties when it comes to “Platt”, which is sometimes incomprehensible to a non-northerner (I hail from the Frankfort area), especially when it comes to the Dialect from the Dithmarschen area or the Friesian Islands.
An example:
“Solangn as wei leeft, ward fedde Ossn schlacht, de na uns kommt künt Herdnköpp fretn” Säh unns Husschlachter wenn he bie uns schlachn dä.
and in High German
Solange wie wir leben, werden fette Ochsen geschlachtet, die nach uns kommen, können Heringsköpfe fressen! Sagte unser Hausschlachter, wenn er bei uns schlachtete.
Even without understanding the meaning of the words, the difference is quite stark.
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Heringsköpfe fressen – yum! In cream sauce, please!
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Not the heads please, but I miss my mother’s salt herrings (the salt extracted by placing the herrings for a day in a cold water bath) in cream sauce, with onion slices, laurel leaves, peppercorn, mustard seed, resting in a pot for two days at least, then served with potatoes…heaven on earth, steak comes not even close. Food for the poor, but the rich never knew what they were missing…….
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OMG that sounds so delicious! I’m not kidding, I love herring.
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It definitely is. I at one time found a bucket of salted herrings in our local supermarket in Canada, grabbed it, and prepared the meal myself. Of course, severe overeating followed. That find was one in a lifetime in Canada.
Here in the Azores we have Bacalhau, salted cod from Newfoundland or Norway (check out Knut Hamsun’s “Vagabond” stories for a description). Cheap food for the poor, again, but because of the collapse of the stock now quite expensive at over 10Euro/kg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacalhau
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Mykolaiv is from Ukrainian name Mykola
Mykola is in Russian Nikolai
So, Mykolaiv is in Russian Nikolayev
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Thanks, Mike. The deeper riddle, which I have not been able to solve, is why Ukrainians started pronouncing that initial N- (in that particular name) as M-.
The Ukrainian language has other names that start with N- for example Nikifor. So it’s still a mystery why they switched out the N- for M- just in this one name, Nikolai! Must be some dialect thing, I am guessing.
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Mykola is also in Belarusian in the form – Mikalay
Also, in Czech, Slovak, Polish, Hungarian or Slovenian there are both alternatives of the name in various forms – Mikulash & Nikola for example, both used.
In those countries, they have for example St. Mikulash and not St. Nikolai while the name derived from Nikolai (Nikola, Nikolai etc) are used as well but not for the saints
Churches and cathedrals dedicated to this saint have as well the name Saint Mikulash and not Nikolai or so.
All those variants are derived from the Greek name Nicolaos which means “victory of the people” or “victor from the people”
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Very interesting, thanks, Mike! Since this phenomenon is also seen in Czech, Slovak and Polish, it makes me wonder if this is some West Slavic dialect thing that got borrowed into Ukrainian via Poland.
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