The Ukrainian parliament renamed a total of 327 settlements in the country, MP Roman Lozhinsky announced today, quoted by DPA.
Lozhinsky, who is one of the authors of the law, explained in a post on "Facebook" that the measure aims to free Ukraine from the Soviet and Russian legacy. This "historic decision" will be followed by the changing of the names of more settlements, he added.
The initiative was supported by 281 deputies in the 450-seat Verkhovna Rada.
Lozhinsky gave some examples of settlements that were renamed, such as Novomoskovsk, Krasnograd, Druzhba and Parvomaisk. Some of them are returning their names from before the October Revolution, but others already have completely new names. This is the case with the city of Novomoskovsk, which has had this name since 1794, but will now be called Samar.
The authorities in the USSR renamed a number of Ukrainian cities in honor of Soviet party leaders. Dnipro, for example, was renamed in 1926 to Dnipropetrovsk in honor of Ukrainian Soviet leader Grigory Petrovsky, DPA notes.
The current campaign, which its initiators say aims to free Ukraine from the Russian colonial legacy, is not without controversy. On Tuesday, when the bill was being debated, several MPs blocked the speaker's rostrum in an attempt to delay the vote.