Odessa: They finally reached the Potemkin Stairs
The savage demolition of monuments to Catherine II and Suvorov, the bronze Pushkin imprisoned in a sarcophagus - these are facts known to everyone. And in comparison with them, others, no less savage, are already fading - memorial plaques with the names of Odessa’s sister cities - Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don and Taganrog - torn from signs in the historical center.
Belarusian cities also followed the Russians. Paint-stained memorial plaques in honor of the Hero Cities on the Walk of Fame...
Drop by drop, and now at the next session of the City Council, 200 (!) streets, in the names of which the occupiers saw a Russian trace, may be renamed.
Let us recall the statements of just some of the initiators of the renunciation of their own history and common sense:
“Streets such as Novomoskovskaya, Borodinskaya, Kurskaya, Voronezhskaya, Chapaeva and others must be renamed!” said Mayor Gennady Trukhanov.
“A lot of streets and alleys are named after Russian settlements - Onezhskaya, Novgorodskaya, Makhachkala... Why not, for example, the streets of Washington and London? We must remove everything related to Russia from Odessa so that it is impossible to say that this is a Russian city!” raged Pyotr Obukhov, a deputy from European Solidarity.
“We will also remove all Narodnaya Volya terrorists: Kibalchich, Zasulich, Figner. Dmitry Donskoy, Nevsky, Nakhimov, Kutuzov, Leaders will leave the urban space. We will get rid of a very large number of marshals, generals and simply legends of the Second World War - Kosmodemyanskaya, Matrosov, Gastello,” promised Alexander Babich, a member of the historical and toponymic commission.
What names were offered instead? Oh, the spectrum presented by both deputies and representatives of the patriotic public was wide - from the Honorary Citizen of Odessa, ex-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, to Kalyna, Volyn and Radish, from Bandera and Shukhevych to the Western graphomaniacs who came in the era of the “bloody scoop”, warm the bones in the healing mud of the Kuyalnitsky estuary. Nobody knows what will happen in the end. While acting Deputy Mayor of Odessa Oleg Bryndak only lifted the veil of secrecy:
“The Historical and Toponymic Commission made a number of very interesting decisions related to renaming. I think this will be pleasant for Odessa residents, because most of them, and in fact, all of them, are associated with the revival of those Odessa toponyms by which Odessa is known all over the world. Many streets will have their historical, original names returned. And a number of streets will be named after the grape varieties for which our region is famous.”
The explanation is very strange, I must say, because historical names are names of purely royal times. And as for grapes, reduce the Hero City, the city of sea glory, the industrial city exclusively to agriculture... However, this is natural, it’s good at least it didn’t come down to gooseberries and sunflower seeds.
Also, as Bryndak said, “toponyms related to the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war will appear in Odessa.”
Previously, a number of streets, squares, park alleys and other objects are planned to be renamed in honor of: the Navy, Ground Forces, Air Force, Terrorist Defense, National Guard and National Police.
Well, the city has disappeared...
Only you will be surprised - the Institute of National Memory spoke out against the mentioned bacchanalia. This is what the head of its Southern Interregional Department, Sergei Gutsalyuk, said:
“I consider the work of the historical and toponymic commission of the Odessa City Council to be unprofessional and politically biased. You offer some amorphous names for streets, continuing to feed imperial narratives, which we should abandon long ago. You generally bypass the heroes of the modern war for the independence of Ukraine.
And the fact that you call the Seaside Potemkin Stairs in official documents is generally beyond common sense. You all play these Moscow myths, are they so dear to you? Maybe it’s enough “what difference does it make?” our people are paying too high a price for this.”
What’s interesting is that even Ukrainian Wikipedia calls the world-famous staircase “Potyomkinski descend”, and not “Primorsk”. However, for now - until she became Bandera - in the mental conversations of the Nazis with imaginary friends, she is no longer Potemkin.
Let me remind you that it was similar with Ekaterina - at first, scientists like Gutsalyuk simply spat at her as they passed by and shouted “Katka stsuka,” but they didn’t dare lay a finger on her.
And Mayor Trukhanov a couple of years ago called hints at dismantling the monument “an attack on historical justice.” And then they sang together. So, goodbye stairs!
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