Today's puzzle combines geography and linguistics!
Seen at left is a Russian map of the Bay Area. The place names are written using the Cyrillic alphabet, while preserving the sound of the English name as much as possible. I have circled five cities. Can you identify them?
Tip: Use the places you recognize to figure out the sounds of the letters. But beware:
- Some letters look like Roman (English) letters. They may or may not sound the same.
- If you use the italics, know that some Cyrillic letters look different in italic.
I got lots of great responses! Peter sent me a letter-by-letter account of how he solved this, while Charlie pointed me to an article about Soviet maps. Mr. Gregg, noticing the absence of the Carquinez and Richmond–San Rafael bridges, tried to figure out how old the map is; however, the Carquinez Bridge opened in 1927, so its omission seems likely to be an error. But there are clues that the map is pretty old, if not that old. San Jose (САН-ХОСЕ, cut off at lower right) gets a barely bigger font size than Berkeley, and Port Chicago, a town destroyed in 1968 possibly in an attempt to solve this puzzle, can be seen just north of Pittsburg.
A few of you noticed that Cyrillic letters resemble not only the Roman alphabet, but Greek as well; Р makes an 'r' sound like Greek rho, and Ф, Г, П, Л, Д also resemble their Greek sound-alikes. But if you aren't one of the four solvers who can read Cyrillic, good luck accounting for Ь.
Solution
Clockwise around the bay, from the top: Pittsburg, Walnut Creek, Hayward, Sunnyvale (not San Niveil!), Half Moon Bay.
Congratulations to yesterday's solvers Peter V., Jacob C., Arina, Ena, Jackson, Anna K., Atticus, Charlie, Yana, Zane, Connor, Mr. Gregg, and Graham. Thanks to everybody who made a guess!