Near the village of Katsiveli on the southern coast of Crimea there is the village of Muhalatka. The toponym is notable not only for its Zan suffix "-at", with the help of which geographical names are constructed, but also for its root "muha", which is translated from Georgian as "oak".
Are there oaks in Muhalatka? Yes, there are:"... It is characteristic that the patriarchal trees of the pubescent oak with trunks 5-5.5 m in girth now grow mainly in the territories of forest parks on the southern coast of Crimea: in Tesseli, Foros, Molas, Mukhalatka, Yasnaya Polyana, Livadia, Lower Oreanda, Upper Massandra and Nikitsky Garden... ".
In the “Instruction of the Tiflis Provincial Peasant Affairs Gori District Chief” from 1885, the following is stated:
“P r e p e c t i o n of the attorney from the society of Khizans living on the estate
of the princes Palavandovs, in the villages of Samtskaro, Muhleti, Mugrisi and Prinevi…”
As we can see, in Georgia there was also a village with virtually the same name. Technically Muhleti is formed out of "muhli" which is "knee" in Georgian. But it seems much less probable compared to oaks.
Meanwhile the Megrelian dictionary adds an additional twist, as "tka" (ტყა) means "forest" in it. To make "muhala" out of "muha" is not an easy task, but Muhleti was somehow formed too.
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