“Chaos” or “Hauz”

30.06.202023:18

There are two placenames in the park of Alupka –  the names of tumbles of diabase rocks – “Little chaos” and “Big chaos”. Beforetime, the old Crimean Tatar Alupka, which history spans more than 2,500 years, settled on the bank of the sea lower than that rocks. Up to now, there is a strong mountain spring between them. It makes a mountain lake. The same lake you can find in the crater of the “Big chaos”.

This mountain spring was the source of the water for all the Alupka spinning the barrels of watermills (there was no need to bring the stones from somewhere else because they were made of that very diabase debris). From that word the Crimean Tatar “hauz” – “pool”, “pond” appeared (look at V. Dal Explanatory Dictionary of the Live Great Russian Language, chapter 4. –  hauz – east.tatar, kauz, pool, pond in the mills). With the help of a famous writer-historian Eugene Markov Crimean Tatar “hauz” became Russian “chaos”. The placename which meant a pond started symbolizing the rocks around. The toponym “chaos” was spread all around guidebooks: pre-revolution, pre-war and modern ones. After that, a lot of such “chaoses” appeared – Massandra chaos, Alupka chaos, Big and Little chaoses, etc. V.I. Dal explained the word “chaos” as a “disorder”. It seems it’s time to rid of all the disorder and we have to return the correct meaning of “hauz” to the placename because it means a mountain spring, mountain pond among the rocks of Alupka park

Firdousi Useymov

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Author: Редакция Avdet

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