bitful

I'm glad nobody noticed an unclosed tag in one of my last posts, which meant there were only six things I did not know last week instead of seven.

See? Not a bad thing to have just a handful of very distracted readers. I'd hate the pressure otherwise.

Anyway. Quite glad that item #4 did not show, as it was rather longer than the others and did not look good. Here it is then:

4. Moscow had its own Vauxhall Gardens. Established by Michael Maddox in 1783, they had pleasure gardens, a small theatre/concert hall, a rotunda for promenades, and apartments for tea or supper. The word вокза́л (vokzal) became a synonym for pleasure gardens, one of which was situated at the terminus of the first Russian railway line.

   The one described above is a more credible explanation why the Russian word for large, main station is today вокза́л (vokzal) than the popular yet never documented belief that a Russian delegation came to London, arrived in Vauxhall, saw the station name and believed it meant 'station'. Which makes sense, as I'd always found it hard to believe Russians could be that thick.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 at 4:28 am and last modified on December 5th, 2007 at 5:57 am, and is filed under 7 things. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.