Boris Yeltsin Street in Yekaterinburg was proposed to be renamed Petrovsky Prospekt

Members of the Public Chamber of Yekaterinburg proposed to perpetuate the memory of Peter I by renaming Boris Yeltsin Street into Petrovsky Prospekt. The attitude towards the first president of Russia is deteriorating and “it is not known how the presence in the city center of such an annoying factor as a street in his honor affects the residents,” supporters of such a decision point out. Other objects that were proposed to be named after the emperor were the Historical Square and two sections of the Iset River in the Ural capital.

The issue of perpetuating the memory of Peter I in Yekaterinburg was considered by members of the Public Chamber (OP) of the city at a meeting on June 1. The deputy chairman of the chamber, Sergei Cherkasov, first suggested naming the Historical Square in the city center after Peter I, and renaming the arboretum on March 8 Street into the park named after Catherine I. The second option was to name the right bank of the Iset River from Chelyuskintsev Street to Lenin Avenue – Peter I Embankment, and the left bank – embankment of Catherine I.

The final and most controversial option was the proposal to rename one of the central streets of the Ural capital in honor of the emperor. “Name the street on January 9, which was renamed Boris Yeltsin Street, Petrovsky Prospekt,” said Mr. Cherkasov. He explained that the attitude towards the first president of Russia is deteriorating. “Levada Center” (recognized as a foreign agent.— “b”) in January conducted a survey among 1.6 thousand people, according to which only 8% have a positive attitude towards Boris Yeltsin. There is no data on how residents are affected by the presence in the city center of such an annoying factor as a street in his honor. But I think that it somehow affects in terms of crime and labor productivity,” Sergei Cherkasov explained.

The press service of the Yeltsin Center “Kommersant” did not comment on this proposal.

Member of the OP Dmitry Redin at the meeting said that “the world will not shudder” if the street is renamed, but insisted on the option to name the Historical Square after Peter I. Other members of the chamber recalled that Yekaterinburg already has Petrovskaya Street and an object named after the emperor, the residential complex “Peter I”.

“There is no revolutionary fuse on the principle of “demolish one thing and build another.” Very balanced and careful approach. It was decided to propose the issue of the possibility of renaming a street, a historical square or a city territory in honor of Peter I for consideration by the head of the city Alexei Orlov and the profile commission on the names of toponymic objects, ”summed up the chairman of the chamber, the rector of the Ural State Economic University Yakov Silin.

“As a historian, I get a soft grin at the initiative to rename Boris Yeltsin Street. So the street was named in 2008, and if it is renamed, it will be perhaps the shortest naming in the history of the city, – Igor Pushkarev, director of the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg, told Kommersant. Boris Yeltsin played a significant role in the life of the city and the region, therefore I think there should be a street in his honor. This is our local identity, no matter how they treat this person now. Yeltsin ruled the country at one of its most critical moments.” He recalled that we are talking about one of the oldest streets in the city, which was renamed at least three times: it was called Odinarnaya, Fetisovskaya, January 9 (in honor of Bloody Sunday). “This street was periodically renamed depending on this or that historical context. If they rename it now, it means that the historical context has changed,” Mr. Pushkarev added.

In May, the chairman of the Union of Cinematographers, Nikita Mikhalkov, called for the closure of the Yeltsin Center on the street of the same name in Yekaterinburg. At the session “Besogon and Law” at the XI St. Petersburg International Legal Forum, he complained that the first thing children see when they come to the Yeltsin Center is “this is a terrifying historical animated film about the history of the country, where dirt, abomination, betrayal, slavery , horror, and the light in the window is only a single person who came and changed all this. He added that the building could become an “honest” museum of contemporary history. Later, Senator Alexei Pushkov supported the director.

Katerina Yakusheva, Yekaterinburg