Alexey Sklyarenko's afterthought:
As always, it occurred to me a bit too late that
there was боль (pain) in both большевик (Bolshevik, this
political term comes from большинство, "majority", and большой is Russian
for "large") and another historical place name: Тобольск (an old Siberian town
on the Irtysh river, not far from the place where the Tobol
river flows into it). It was to Tobolsk that the last Russian tsar was
banished with his family in 1917 by the Provisional Government (the
following year the entire family, including the family doctor, E. S.
Botkin, and servants, was executed by the Bolsheviks in
Ekaterinburg).
I never heard of St Botolph before. Thanks to Stan
for his comments.