Many Muscovites know the station "Bitsa" on the Kursk railway, the metro station "Bitsevsky Park", the equestrian sports complex" Bitsa "and"Bitsevsky Forest Park". Residents of Southern Butovo also know Starobitsevskaya Street, named after the former village of Staraya Bitsa. But, I think, few people know that all these names owe their origin to the name of a small river Bitsa (left tributary of the Pakhra), flowing south of the MKAD.

At first glance, this name is not Russian, because it cannot be interpreted in modern Russian. Therefore, it was compared with hydronyms of Baltic origin (Abesta-Obista in the Dnieper region, Abista in Lithuania). But let's pay attention to the fact that in the old sources, starting from 1480, the river was called differently-Obytsa. This suggests that the name of the river is still Slavic, containing the prefix o - or ob-. Let us recall the words of an astute researcher: "Toponymy brings us old Russian prefix forms that have long lost their productivity and are now not always clear. For o, about, the most likely recoverable values are "around, on both sides" (Nikonov V. A. Introduction to Toponymy, Moscow, 1965). Indeed, we see in old documents, and in the living speech of osluditsa (cf. sluda "steep river bank"), orelka (cf.rel "shallow; elevated place"). By the way, according to this model (which is no longer felt now), the common Slavic word island is also built, the Proto-Slavic *o-strov, "that which flows around, is bypassed on both sides by a current, a jet."

So to our name (in its ancient form of an Inhabitant), the Old Russian obisesti "surround, circumvent" was cited (M. V. Gorbanevsky Experience in compiling a toponymic dictionary of the Moscow region //

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Problems of East Slavic toponymy, Moscow, 1979), otok "flow around, bypass of something", whence the name of the Old Rivers, branches of the river (bypassing the island) - Otok, Otochka (Smolitskaya G. P. Names of Moscow streets, Moscow, 1996). Yes, a term with this meaning could easily form the basis for the name of a water feature. But otok, otochka could not give an Inhabitant in any way!

And what if not *o-tok, but *ob-tok, from where the later excess > obito k is already real (cf. the Ukrainian dialect obtgk "small island"?). Here we can see the names of the Obitochnaya (Unprofitable)River and Obitochnaya Spit near the confluence of this river with the Sea of Azov; the Obyotka River - the right tributary of the Pel, the Obyotka River in the Seversky Donets basin, the village of Obice on the Zhitava River (the left tributary of the Danube). Based on the presence of some of the hydronyms given by us, O. N. Trubachev was so convinced of the former existence of the East Slavic *obitok (from flow, teku) that he introduced this word as an article supplement to the Etymological Dictionary of the Russian Language translated (and reviewed) by M. Fasmer (see O. N. Trubachev In Search of Unity Moscow, 1997). And he was right! In the "Rylsky refusal book" of the XVII century, we read: "... half of the lake Obyotka...". The commentator of the document points out that in the dialects of the Sumy-Chernihiv Polesie and still obyot means "island on the river".

So, we have a real (albeit outdated, existing only in part of the Old Russian dialects) loss. The masculine word obitok "island" naturally corresponds to the feminine word obitka, obititsa, obitsa "river with islands". And we see such a Bitsa-Bitsa in the south of Moscow. Judging by the above data, the name was given to the river by the chronicled Vyatichi, who were neighbors with the chronicled Northerners. The word obitok has disappeared from the language, the corresponding name of the Obitza River has also become incomprehensible, and now it has turned into a completely mysterious Bitza.

And here is another name from an ancient map - Gvozdnya. Now this river (a left tributary of the Pakhra River) is called Gvozdyanka. The word nail is "heard" in this name (for example, someone called Nail lived near this river, so it became so called). It was also assumed that this name goes back to the Russian dialect gvazda "mud, swamp" (cf.izgvazdatsya "to get dirty"). But in the conditions of the Moscow akanya, the appearance of the name Gvozdnya (Gvozdyanka) from gvazda is unlikely. Its origin from gvozd is also highly probable. And here's why.

Much more famous than the small river was in ancient times the Gvozdnya parish (also to the south of Moscow; E. M. Pospelov believes that it was located along the Gvozdna River in the basin of the Tsna, a left tributary of the Oka). The area is already mentioned in the book of Ivan Kalita in 1336. And here about this name A.M. Selishchev (Izbrannye trudy. M., 1968) shrewdly remarked: "Apparently, not with a nail, but with

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a nail in the meaning of "forest" was associated with the name of the parish of Gvozdna between the rivers Moscow and Nerskaya."

In historical and dialect dictionaries of the Russian language, the word gvozd "forest" does not exist (the author met it once in a document of the XV century in the context: "in the patrimony in Obedovets across the river... portend to Salotcha pryamya"). But it is present in many Old Russian place names (more on this later) and is known in the ancient vocabulary of West Slavic languages (others - Czech, hvozd "wooded mountains", others-Polish. gwozd "forest in a mountainous area"). It is possible that among the Eastern Slavs it meant not just "forest", but, say, "forest on a hill", but we cannot judge this now. What is fairly clear is that the word was active in East Slavic dialects. But clearly not all of them. E. M. Pospelov (Toponymic Dictionary of the Moscow Region, Moscow, 2000) considers the name of the Ravine to be the toponymic heritage of the Vyatichi. However, the geographical distribution of such names suggests something else.

So, we see the names of the villages of Gvozdovo, Gvozdovichi, Gvozdy (3 villages) in Belarus, Zagvozdie near the Mozhaika River (basse. Zap. Dviny), the village of Zagvozdie near the Skokovka River (basse. Upper Volga), Gvozdovo on the Zhdyn River (l. pr., bass Lake Ilmen), Gvozdki on Lake Kholmskoe (bass. Berezayki-L. pr. Meta), Gvozdino (now Old Gvozdino) on the Mologa River (XV c.), Gvozdni on the Mogocha River near Torzhok (XVI c.), the Gvozdinka River near Pereslavl-Zalessky, the Gvozdnya River (right tributary of the Nudoli, tributary of the Istra) has been known since the XVI century. The range of these names generally lies outside the Vyatichi territories, but it practically coincides with the original area and the zones of expansion of the annalistic Krivichi. As you know, the Vyatichsky (along the Oka) and Krivichsky (along the Meta and Volga) streams "met" just in the area of the Moscow region.

So, the names of the Moscow region (and now Moscow) rivers Bitsy and Gvozdyanka are toponymic monuments that capture lexical relics of various East Slavic dialects.

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