Kherson Regional Council plans to consider at its upcoming session the draft decision on the renaming of village and urban settlement councils which provides for Rosa Luxembourg village council in Kakhovka district to be renamed as Fedorivka village council. This provision is in the draft decision that has been published on the regional council’s official website. According to local journalists, this renaming is purely technical in nature, as Rosa Luxembourg village council has no settlement with such name within its boundaries. Actually, it is the only such village council in Ukraine. It is not only unprecedented, but illegal, too, as the local officials had found out.
Kherson journalists see even a technicalities-motivated renaming, eliminating yet another Soviet-era place name, as an ideological breakthrough for the community, because the region traditionally votes for the Communists.
“Of course, disappearance of yet another Communist-era village council name is a breakthrough in our political circumstances,” Kherson journalist Oleh Baturin told The Day. “Interestingly, our Communists, who are usually defending their dead idols and foaming at the mouth at any proposal to restore historical names to our settlements and streets, met the Rosa Luxembourg issue with cold indifference. More generally, when talking to villagers, one understands that they need the government that would provide them with adequate services far more than one engaged in the renaming of streets and villages. Villages of Kherson region are currently suffering from very poor freight and passenger transportation, there is no natural gas supply there, hospitals and kindergartens are closing down, and water supply is less than adequate, too.”
Let us recall that Kherson City Council decided to restore historical names to several streets in the city center in late 2012. Thus, Lenina Street is no more, having been split into Soborna and Hretska Streets, while Karla Marksa Street is now officially known as Potiomkinska Street.
