Different generations of people have mixed feelings about the process of renaming cities. It is not uncommon even today to hear how people of the older generation call their city their usual name, because the name contains a part of their life. On the other hand, the history of the country, its glorious past, requires the return of the original names.
Instructions
Step 1
About 400 cities and towns of our country (almost 35% of the total) were renamed, among them only the number of the main ones reaches thirty. Moreover, sometimes renaming happened more than once: the original name was changed to a new one, then it was restored, another name appeared again, then the historical name returned again. The following names can serve as an example: Rybinsk, which became Shcherbakov, then again Rybinsk, briefly renamed Andropov and returned the original name; Vladikavkaz was twice called Ordzhonikidze, for some time it became Dzaudzhikau.
Step 2
The change in the social structure of the state entailed a change in the names. Many cities received a new name in Soviet times due to the fact that the names of Russian monarchs were reflected in the existing names. The renaming took place to perpetuate the memory of famous political figures and writers.
Step 3
St. Petersburg in the original version of the name has Dutch roots, since its founder Peter the Great was in some way connected with the Netherlands (he studied and lived there for some time). Then the name began to be pronounced in the German manner. During the German war of 1914, the city became known as Petrograd. But this name did not take root among the population of the country. The new renaming to Leningrad took place in 1924 in honor of the leader of the proletarian revolution in Russia V. Lenin. It remained until 1991, then the city regained its historical name.
Step 4
Yekaterinburg, which was renamed Sverdlovsk during the Soviet era (Yakov Sverdlov was a Russian revolutionary), was named after the Russian Empress Catherine I. The city acquired its original name at the end of the twentieth century.
Step 5
Nizhny Novgorod was renamed Gorky in 1932 on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the writer's social and literary activity (by the way, M. Gorky himself was against this procedure). Now the original name has been returned to the city.
Step 6
Volgograd received its final real name in 1961. And at first it was a city on the Volga River called Tsaritsyn, later renamed Stalingrad. During the Khrushchev era, these two names turned out to be inappropriate, so it was decided to change them.
Step 7
The ancient city of Tver was called Kalinin for a long time (after the name of the party leader M. I. Kalinin). The names of the cities, renamed in honor of the Soviet statesmen, did not last long: Naberezhnye Chelny - Brezhnev; Rybinsk - Shcherbakov, Andropov; Izhevsk - Ustinov.
Step 8
Sometimes cities changed their name for euphony: Laptevo - Yasnogorsk, Chesnokovka - Novoaltaisk.
Step 9
In the nineties of the 20th century, their historical names returned to many Russian cities. But even now there are many large cities that bear names that are far from their historical names: for example, Krasnodar - Yekaterinodar, Novosibirsk - Novonikolaevsk, Kirov - Vyatka.
