Bristol: You know Брiстоль (in Ukrainian) as a 150 year old fine Hotel in Yalta, Ukraine along the shores of the Black Sea. This is the mountain city of Yalta and near the palace where Stalin, Churchill and FDR divided up Europe as the spoils of war with FDR giving Stalin the countries of Eastern Europe in exchange for his joining the fight against Japan.
(photo: Anna Panchenko)
In nearby Odessa is another hotel named Bristol, spelled in Russian as бристоль, an elegant 5-star hotel that most of us normal folk couldn’t afford the nightly rate. But it is beautiful. Of course there is the college named Bristol in England (UK) which is named for the city of Bristol there. Bristol literally means “the place at the bridge” in English and refers to the trading town founded around the year 1,000 in what is now modern day England.
But did you know that there is a “Bristol” in the southern USA? Complete with a speedway, the southern USA Bristol is located in two states, it straddles the lines of Tennessee and Virginia. It is where we used to go Christmas shopping when I was a kid–it had a “five and dime” store, the only one within a day’s drive back then.
