Unlike Other Post-Soviet States, Russia has Avoided a Wave of Renaming Because It is ‘More Stable,’ Yelovsky Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 27 – Renaming cities or even streets in Russia attracts a great deal of attention, but in fact it has been and will remain relatively rare there in contrast to other post-Soviet state because Russia is “more stable” than the others and changing names doesn’t normally happen unless large groups of people are mobilized, Dmitry Yelovsky says.
    The current plans to rename Rostov-na-Donu and Tutayev are attracting attention, the communications expert says, but they should be seen as efforts by local officials to boost the brands their cities want rather than anything broader, and efforts to rename Volgograd aren’t going anywhere fast (club-rf.ru/76/detail/7501).
Consequently, Yelovsky suggests, there are unlikely to be many such efforts in the future because unlike in the immediate post-Soviet period, the Russian Federation is relatively stable and neither the government nor the population is obsessed with renaming or is ready to pay the price of change.
    Despite his suggest, there are efforts in many places to eliminate Soviet names from streets, many of which are supported by the Russian Orthodox Church. Among the most prominent are some in Kirov which some want to use as a springboard to bring back that city’s tsarist-era name Vyatka (rusk.ru/newsdata.php?idar=119179).