Sopka

(1) In geomorphology and geology, the general name for hills and mountains with rounded summits in Kazakhstan, Transbaikalia, and the Far East of the USSR. On Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands the term is applied to volcanoes, for example, the Kliuchevskaia Sopka and the Avachinskaia Sopka, and in the Crimea and the Caucasus it is applied to mud volcanoes.

(2) In archaeology, the tall (reaching 4 m and more) rounded conical barrows that served as burial mounds for the Slovenes in the Novgorod area, especially during the ninth and tenth centuries. Sopki are found in the basins of Lake Il’men’ and the Lovat’, Volkhov, and Msta rivers. They are encountered as far northeast as the White Sea and as far west as the Velikaia River.