KATSIVELI

One of the most impeccable Kartvelian toponyms in Crimea is the name of the village of Katsiveli on the southern coast. The word is an adjective derived from the Georgian noun "katsvi" (ქაცვი) - "sea buckthorn". The following quotation from an article by Larisa Vyshinskaya in Novaya Gazeta (16.06.2009) shows how typical a plant sea buckthorn is for Crimea:

"... Not far from Sudak... fragrant thickets of sea buckthorn, which Crimeans for some reason call oleaster (they say that this is what "male" trees are called)...".
In English, sea buckthorn is called "seaberry" (sea berry) precisely because it loves seacoasts, since sea salt eliminates competing plants, in the shade of which sea buckthorn could not grow. And Katsiveli is located precisely on the sea coast, and, moreover, surrounded by other toponyms of Kartvelian origin - Mukhalatka, Pilyaki and Mshatka. The first "i" in "Katsiveli" seems to be an acceptable approximation.

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