Dictatorship Only Three and a Half Hours by Car from Moscow – If There’s No Traffic

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 27 – As in other countries, place names are often the subject of mirth or political controversy. And one just reported by the Most Media portal – Dictatorship – is likely to join the most prominent of these although how it will be treated remains uncertain (mostmedia.org/ru/posts/roditsja-i-zhit-v-diktature).

            In a story entitled “Born and Living in Dictatorship,” journalist Stanislav Pyatyorik describes Dictatorship, a settlement of 438 people in Tula Oblast just 3.5 hours by car from Moscow “if there is no traffic.” One can get there by taxi but otherwise there is no public transportation connection.

            Established during Stalin’s collectivization campaign and a place that originally took its name from the Soviet slogan of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” to which those who were compelled to give up their land and animals and join collective farms, it has nonetheless survived under the same name for almost a century.

            Undoubtedly some Russian wits will see the continuing existence of this toponym as symbolic of Russia’s trajectory from Stalin to Putin.