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OOC: How Does RL Influence My RP?


Uralica

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Been thinking about writing about this for a while now, but it stems from a comment Kzoppistan made a few months ago about how he liked "the realistic detail" I put into my RP, and there's a reason for this.

I dunno why, but I've always found the prospect of writing about places and peoples that actually exist fascinating, so this has very heavily influenced my RP writing style, and even my nitpickery over resources when I was in my "chronic re-roller" stage for the first half of 2009. :P Y'see, a nation in the middle of Russia (quite literally) having rubber, spices, sugar, or wine would just not make any sense. It's too damn cold there! (Unless you count synthetic rubber, then it's only marginally fudgeable.) Surprisingly though, wheat would be feasible, because there are chernozem soils in the southwestern part of what comprises Uralica in-game, and what comprises central Russia IRL.

For those of you who wonder what the hell chernozem is, it literally translates as "black soil," and is the most productive soil on the planet for growing crops. The Great Plains/Canadian Prairies and Russia/Ukraine are both loaded with the stuff.

So you probably wonder if all my cities and towns are also real. And the answer is, mostly yes. There are no settlements created "from scratch" and very few others - probably the best example of the "others" is "Chetyrgoroda," a semi-educated guess at a translation of "Quad Cities," which comprises the settlements of Alabyevskiy, Malinovskiy, Pionyerskiy, and Yubilyenyy, all located in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug IRL.

These "real cities" fall into four groups.

The first and most obvious group is of cities whose "official English names" I hung onto. The capital Syktyvkar, Kirov, Perm', Yekaterinburg, Surgut, Nizhnevartovsk, Vologda, Cherepovets, Izhevsk, Murmansk, and Arkhangel'sk are but a few examples.

Then there are those cities whose names I switched to Uralic-language names they already had. Examples of this include Viipuri (Finnish for Vyborg), Kondupohju (Karelian for Kondopoga), Votka (Udmurt for Votkinsk), Tsykmä (a Finnish transliteration of Cÿkmä, the Hill Mari name of Kozmodemyansk), Yulser-Ola (Meadow Mari for Volzhsk), Viche Alan (Meadow Mari for Vyatskiye Polyany), Orozai (Moksha for Ruzayevka), Lapyt-Nank (the Khanty origins of Labytnangi's name), and Salyakharad (Nenets for Salekhard).

The third and probably most humourous group for native speakers of Russian, Finnish, and sometimes other languages, is the "fudge translations" I did. :P Vel'sk became "Veliski," Velikiy Ustyug became "Isoustiuki," Krasnoturyinsk became "Punaturjin," Nefteyugansk became "Juganvar," (a shining example of my fundamental state of fail with Hungarian :lol1: ), and in terms of alternate names, "Trakt" became "Tráty" (more Hungarian) and "Pazhga" became "Patschke." (It's supposed to be Mennonite Low German. Chey will probably ROFL when he sees this.) A sort-of member of this is "Yugrakar," which is Khanty-Mansiysk IRL. (I'll explain "Yugra" later.)

The fourth and smallest group, the commies will hate me for. :ph34r: It hardly makes sense to RP a Christian nation with so many blatantly communist names, so anything including "Lenin," "Stalin," "Komsomol," or "Sovet" ended up renamed. There were three major "Sovetsks" or "Sovetskys" in Uralica. The easternmost one was renamed to "Kuiksk" after one of my RP characters, Vaido Kuik. Then there was the one in Mari El which I renamed Yarkosky. (Will probably feel bad about it in a couple months and change it to something more Mari and less narcissistic. Maybe Shlomov-Ola. :P) The third and final one, in Kirovsky Rayon (RL Kirovskaya Oblast'), had a Meadow Mari name, so I brought that in. If you ever see me mention Kukarka, that's it.

If you've looked at my Wiki, you'll notice I have counties as well. Two groups here.

Some are perfectly (or almost perfectly) analagous to their RL counterparts. I set aside some larger cities as "unitary authorities," so these don't count.

For example, Nenetsia-North Uralica (Nenets Aut. Okrug), Yamalia (Yamalo-Nenets Aut. Okrug), Yugra (which is the native name for RL Khanty-Mansiysk Aut. Okrug), Permski Rayon (if you don't count Komi-Permyak Okrug - a small part of that was separated), Kirovski Rayon, Mari El, Chuvashia, Mordovia, West Uralica (Vologda Oblast), Karelia (actually a wee bit bigger than in RL), and Sapmi (Murmansk Oblast) are all fitted to RL boundaries, with a few tweaks. (I gave Karelia the two districts of Leningrad Oblast that make up the Karelian Isthmus.)

On the other hand, I cut up Udmurtiya, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Komi Republic, and Arkhangel'sk Oblast into smaller pieces.

Geeky Jarkko is geeky.

Wasn't all geography, mind you. The 32 languages my country speaks all exist, and all but four are Uralic (English, Russian, Plautdietsch, and Chuvash are the exceptions).

But where things get most interesting is the history stories. Read through a few articles and see if you can't guess which of them are actually RL happenings... or potential RL happenings. ;) I was just a little shocked when I looked at the Wikipedia article about Mari El and saw its similarities to some of my own material.

Life imitating art? Or art imitating life?

Either way, it gives me something to muse about.

Thanks for putting up with my ramblings. :P

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