Villages came in several varieties, the derevnia and the selo being by far the most numerous. This layer describes derevni (деревня > деревни), which correspond, more or less, to the English term "hamlet": a small, unincorporated, rural settlement. While a selo was generally the site of an Orthodox church and a seat of peasant administration, a derevnia lacked those features.
This layer contains 4,455 villages, spread from islands off the Finnish coast to the mouth of the Lena River in northern Siberia. This is a crucial point, in fact: in comparison with sela, the distribution of derevni was less dense but more widespread.
