Standing in front of a statue of a rude-looking Soviet general, Peter Obukhov explained his plan to clear Russian names of the city of Odessa. “The things written here are unacceptable. You can see the word “Kremlin”. There is also Lenin’s face, “he said, pointing to an inscription under the monument to Rodion Malinowski.
Obukhov is a member of the Odessa city parliament. He said he did not want to demolish the statue of Malinowski, a fate that befell Lenin’s sculptures throughout Ukraine. The Soviet Minister of Defense was born in Odessa and liberated the city from the Nazis during World War II. “I would rewrite the sign and get rid of the communist symbols. We need the truth, “Obukhov said.
He proposed a “de-Russification” campaign after Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine ended. No one knows exactly when this may happen. Meanwhile, Obukhov has compiled a list of historical figures who have given their names on the streets of Odessa, a Russian-speaking port. Some are from the imperial past, others are from the USSR.
Petar Obukhov: “I would rewrite the sign and get rid of the communist symbols. We need the truth. Photo: Luke Harding
Acceptable names are marked in green. They include anyone with a connection to Odessa. Alexander Pushkin is on the list, although he supports Russia’s war against Poland in 1831. The poet wrote part of his masterpiece “Eugene Onegin” in the city where he lived for 11 months. Catherine the Great, the founder of Odessa, made the cut together with the writers Nikolai Gogol and Ivan Bunin.
However, the famous general from Ekaterina Alexander Suvorov is on the red list of names. Obukhov described Suvorov as “a symbol of Russian imperial militancy” and wanted to rename the Odessa region after him. The MP proposes the cleansing of Russian places (Baikal, Omsk, Rostov) and the gathering of Dmitry Donskoy, a Moscow prince of the 14th century.
In a poll of Odessa residents, 44% supported de-Russification, 36% were against and 7% voted for the return of communist-era names. This minority is largely made up of retirees, said Obukhov, nostalgic for the Soviet Union. The city got rid of Soviet Army Boulevard and Karl Marx Street – now Bunin Street – soon after Ukraine became independent in 1991.
Traveling through Odessa in an electric sightseeing car, tour guide Larisa Otkalenko said she probably supported the name change. “You can’t print what I think of Putin because it’s rude. What I can say is that his view of history is completely wrong. It’s a bed, “she said. “Yes, Odessa is a Russian-speaking city. But it is also multinational and cosmopolitan. “
Larissa Otkalenko: “You can’t print what I think about Putin because it’s rude.”
Otkalenko said the territory originally belonged to the Ottoman Turks. The commander who captured their Black Sea fortress, Jose de Ribas, is a Spaniard who served in the Russian army. The first governor of the city, the Duke of Richelieu, was a French aristocrat. It was Richelieu who planted the acacia trees on the boulevards of Odessa. A Flemish engineer, Franz de Volan, drew the city’s street network.
Other foreigners who have lived and settled in Odessa are Greeks, Poles and Italians, Otkalenko said. Odessa was once the third largest Jewish city in the world after New York and Warsaw, she added. Most died between 1941-44 during the Nazi occupation. “We do not need Russia to save us. We can take care of ourselves, “Otkalenko said, adding:” Our beautiful city was known as little Paris. “
Map of Odessa with the location of the statue of Rodion Malinowski marked
However, one of her clients was not convinced by the plan. Natasha Smirnova, a local resident of Odessa, had taken her 10-year-old daughter Anya on a sightseeing tour of the city’s Primorsky Boulevard overlooking the port of Odessa. Smirnova said she was opposed to changing the name of the Suvorovski seaside neighborhood where she lives. “The past is confused,” she said. “But he is ours. Street names are part of that. “
Smirnova said her mother was Ukrainian and her father Russian. Her great-grandfather died in a Nazi concentration camp. She said she was proud of Odessa’s Russian roots. At the same time, she said she hated Putin’s invasion and his attempt to annex Ukraine and make it part of a new Russian empire. As she spoke, the electric car passed the richly decorated Rococo French Opera House in Odessa, now covered in sand.
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Ukraine has twice dismantled Soviet-era state symbols. Many statues of Lenin were removed in the 1990s, including those in Odessa. Kyiv’s parliament embarked on a new round of “decommunization” in 2014 after the Maidan uprising against pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych and the annexation of Crimea by Putin and his war in the eastern Donbass region.
In the Russian-occupied areas, this process is reversing. In April, Russian troops erected a new statue of Lenin in front of the main administrative building in the southern city of Henichesk, in the province of Kherson. They tore down blue and yellow Ukrainian flags from municipal buildings and hung Russian and Soviet ones in their place. This “re-Russification” is part of Putin’s attempt to wipe out Ukraine, Kyiv said.
Otkalenko’s tour ended in front of an Art Nouveau mansion on Deribasivska Street, the pedestrian boulevard in Odessa named after De Ribas. “History is a servant of all ages,” she said.
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