Staff author: Adilia S.
Verkhovna Rada voted to change the name of Ukraine’s third largest city. Dnipropetrovsk has been renamed to Dnipro.
The city’s administration has already renamed the majority of its streets, parks and squares, in according with the “decommunization” law.
New names were granted to more than a hundred of towns and villages in Dnipropetrovsk region, KP.ua reports.
Originally Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk) was named Ekaterinoslav. It also bore the names Novorossiysk, Sicheslav for short periods of time during its history. The name Dnipropetrovsk was given to the city in 1926.
The New Name of Dnipropetrovsk Is Dnipro
On 15 May 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a number of laws concerning the removal of communist monuments and changing names of public places named after communist-related themes. This legislation is known as the “decommunization” law. The names go back to the Soviet times post revolution 1917.
Vitalii Kuprii, a member of parliament, stated that Ukrainian cities should not bear the names of Bolsheviks as they were engaged in oppressive actions against Ukrainian people.
Besides Dnepropetrovsk, another big city was renamed: Dniprodzerzhynsk became Kamianske.
See how the face of the Ukrainian map is changing. (Source: Uatoday.tv)
Dnipro’s mayor Boris Filatov seems to be optimistic about potential expenses to change the city’s name from Dnipropetrovsk to Dnipro. He stated that only an insignificant amount of money will be required.
- The packet of documentation will cost around 800 thousand hryvnia (USD 32,000).
- Replacement of signs requires 2,5 million hryvnia ($99,000).
- Citizens have to pay only 0.85 hryvnia ($0.03) for a new residence registration.
- Businessmen and legal bodies are to make new stamps. A new stamp would cost around 120 hryvnia ($4,75).
However, the majority of Dnipro’s residents preferred to keep the previous name. They consider it too much of a hassle to change it.
The city Dnipro is located on the river Dnipro. This may cause some misunderstandings as well.
As to linguists, they believe that the reduction in length of the name is quite natural. Ukrainians have always used the shortened name of the city and it just has been formalized.
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The Bolsheviks may be gone, but the spirit of their fanaticism lives on in the Ukrainian people, as this mania for name-changing makes evident. From a bad version of communism, the whole FSU went to a bad version of capitalism (African-style kleptocracy), and now the Ukrainians have added civil war to their mess. Good for me though. Cost of living in US dollar terms should be low there for decades to come.
I reckon the local people have no idea about what’s going on in bureaucrats’ minds. Guys, wouldn’t you like to put your efforts to improve people’s living rather than stupid change of streets and cities names?
First of all our Ukrainian deputes have to improve our life, to increase life standards. It must be the people wish to rename their native city or town but not the law. I think there are many holes in our budget. Don’t make populism.
Now, if we were talking about the streets, avenues and towns named Hitler and his henchmen in Germany – then yes, the Ukrainians would be outraged to the limit. But when it comes to themselves, loved ones, the question about the sausage is much more important than the question about maniacs.
When country decides to change the name of the whole city, there have to be a huge reason and huge finances involved in it. Just imagine, how many people will have to change their passports, not only passports, but driver’s licenses and all other documents. What for? I can’t understand such “changes”/
Anna, people don’t need to change passports and drivers licenses. The new name of the city will be stamped in as it goes, as people replace their documents. Renaming cities is a usual practice in the world history. Even Dripropetrovsk had quite a few names before. In Russia, for example, they changed names of cities, too. Sverdlovsk was renamed Yekaterinburg, Leningrad renamed St. Petersburg. Simply Russia did it 20 years ago, and Ukraine is doing it now.