Paul Goble
Staunton,
September 2 – By a vote of 28 to two, residents of Kaspiisk have called on the mayor
of their city to rename the main street of that Daghestani port for Stalin, an
act they say would represent “the restoration of historical justice.” Anyone
who dissents, they say, should simply go somewhere else. The city chief has two
weeks to agree or not.
Molodezh Dagestana reports that advocates
of the change, members of the Stalin Socio-Political Organization, note the
city’s Peace Street earlier was called Stalin Street, and some said that Stalin
bore no responsibility for mass repressions. That was the work of “local
people,” they say and advise opponents of the change to simply move away (md-gazeta.ru/news/54048).
Backers of this change, the republic newspaper says,
do face one obstacle: Kaspiisk, where Moscow plans to relocate its Caspian
flotilla, already has a Stalin Street. But it isn’t an important thoroughfare,
and advocates of renaming the main street in honor of the Soviet dictator say
that this problem can be solved by giving the other street a different name.
Stalin’s name still graces the names
of some two dozen cities and towns in Russia, Meduza reports, although it is
rare for any of them to have two Stalin streets at the same time (meduza.io/news/2018/09/02/ne-nravitsya-pereezzhay-na-obschestvennyh-slushaniyah-v-kaspiyske-reshili-pereimenovat-ulitsu-mira-v-chest-stalina).
Meanwhile,
another Russian has proposed another change in names. Roman Popkov, a Moscow
blogger, says that “in a beautiful Russia of the future, streets will be named
for Fanya Kaplan, the woman who unsuccessfully sought to assassinate Vladimir
Lenin on August 30, 2918 (t.me/roman_popkov/1026).
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