Slavic Sims

The Slavic Sims form a Subcontinent inside Satori Continent. SLGI team gave it the transitional number **B095**.

## History

Satori was built in the first half of 2007. Construction occurred very fast. The area that later became the *Slavic Sims* was built together with the rest of the continent, without any significant difference.

Satori was intended to be the Japanese continent. Similar national projects occurred elsewhere. Jeogeot was planned to be the Korean continent and most of its sims have names that are very hard to pronounce for a non-Korean. Corsica was planned to become a French continent and it has many sims with French-origin names. However, in Satori, most names are not Japanese. Maybe the Lindens realized that there will not be so many Japanese people to colonize a whole continent. So, they used various names for the sims that later formed the continent.

It is not clearly known why the Lindens decided to use Slavic names for some sims. Maybe they wanted to show a peaceful solution for the Russian - Japanese conflict. Maybe they wanted to create a Slavic state within Second Life. Another theory is that they simply did not know what they were doing and randomly took some names from the map.

## Slavic Names

There are 69 sims with Slavic names within Satori. These sims are not quite linked one to another. There are a few remote sims with Slavic names, as well as there are some non-Slavic names in the center of the area.

A close analysis of the names reveal the following aspects:

* Some sims share Slavic proper names (Yuri, Aleksandr).
* Some sims are named after places in the Russian Federation, with majority of population being Russians (Irkutsk, Rybinsk).
* Some sims are named after places in the Russian Federation that are mainly inhabited by non-Slavs (Tatarstan).
* Some sims are named after Slavic names of people or of places outside the Russian Federation: from the South Slavs, Ukraine or other places inhabited with Slavs (Antovic).

Most Slavs use the Cyrillic alphabet. Therefore, transliteration from their language to English is not always correct. Linden Lab sometimes used a wrong transliteration method. Some Slavs find the Latin alphabet difficult and expressionless and find transliterations of their places difficult to read with Latin letters. English people also find difficult to read Slavic names. In South Slavic languages, the letter *J* is actually an *I* semivowel. Also, in Cyrillic alphabet, there is only one letter for the sound *K*, which is sometimes transliterated as *C* and sometimes as *K*.

## Structure

The sims sharing a Slavic name are spread over a wide area. To North, they reach as far as the coastline and to Bingo Strait. To South, they are found even in the South of Satori. Most of them are concentrated in an area, which is roughly the Slavic subcontinent. Surprisingly, there is a gap along them, where sim names are not of Slavic origin.

While defining the borders, SLGI team included some North sims into other subcontinents, as they seem to be economically connected to them. Also, four remote sims in South could not be included into the group, as they are too far. A few non-Slavic sims had been included in the subcontinent, as they share some common features and are within the area.

The subcontinent measures 17 sims from North to South and 9 sims from East to West. It has a total of 87 sims and has a roughly rectangular shape. 20 sims with Slavic names are not included, while 18 sims with non-Slavic names are included in the subcontinent.

## Geography

The subcontinent looks like an endless plateau. To North, it reaches sea level close to Little Sea. To South, it also extends to the coastline. There are some high plateaus in the center. There are no mountains in the subcontinent, but endless plateaus.

High altitudes are reached in Ennin sim (128 m). Another high point is in Zaltu (119 m). Both high spots are on the plateau. There is a gradual altitude transition. Steep grades don't exist in this subcontinent. Since most of the land is flat, it was easy to build roads along it.

Extensive land is flat or almost flat, with large amounts of Abandoned Land. Repeated terraforming and abandoning of land resulted in alteration of initial landscapes.

## Land Status

Most residents owning land in the subcontinent are not Slavs. In fact, the area is, like most parts of Second Life, extremely diverse, with people from all over the world. There are buildings of all types. One can find residential land, shops, clubs or buildings that cannot be categorized easily.

There is a high amount of Abandoned Land, especially in flat and landlocked sims. Inhabited Land is found in larger amounts close to the roads.

## Access

The Slavic Sims have the largest road density of Satori. The roads give access to a large number of parcels.

Both the YavaScript pods and the SLGI Fleet operate within the area.

## See Also

* Second Life Geography
* List Of Subcontinents
* Satori