The lecture on "traveling geography" in the USA is dedicated to how, along with the settlers across the ocean, the names of cities, rivers, and streets were transferred. New York was once New Amsterdam, Harlem was named after the Dutch Haarlem, and Brooklyn is connected to a small town near Utrecht. These examples show that the map of America was formed, in part, from names brought from across the ocean. Lecturer Tatyana Ilarionova will suggest looking at toponyms as a way to preserve a connection to the past. For a settler, the name of their hometown, village, river, or street became a moral support in an unfamiliar environment: the new land received a familiar name, and along with it - a piece of the old world. The main example will be the Dutch, who left a significant mark on the history of New York. Some of the names they brought took root, while others disappeared. Harlem, in this sense, is particularly indicative: a name transferred from Europe eventually acquired its own American history, no longer reducible to the original source. The same mechanism worked for the Irish, Italians, Germans, and Scandinavians: they created "their" places in America by transferring the names of their hometowns and settlements onto the new map. Thus, the toponym became not just a label on a signpost, but a way to view the new land through the memory of what was left behind. Find other events in Moscow on KudaGo.