The State Duma proposed renaming the Gulf of Finland: how deputy Nilov carved the sea

There is a proposal to rename the Gulf of Finland. No, God forbid, this is not suggested by the author of this text. The author would have neither the spirit nor the imagination for such a thing. Fortunately, State Duma deputy Oleg Nilov has both. You can even say, at least fill yourself up – forgive the involuntary pun. But despite all the admiration for the parliamentarian’s courage and creativity, one cannot help but notice that he is by no means a pioneer on the path of “geographical closures.”

Renaming to suit the current political situation is a matter of Russian and world toponymy, although not routine, not everyday, but quite common. True, we still haven’t gotten around to renaming the bays.

The motives as presented by the Duma member himself – by the way, not an ordinary deputy, but the first deputy leader of the faction “A Just Russia – For Truth” – are as follows: “The situation that is developing on the border of Russia with Finland is already becoming intolerable not only for the residents of St. Petersburg, but also for Leningrad region, Karelia. I believe it is necessary to pay attention to the actions and provocations of the once neutral Finland… We should not, cannot, ignore such challenges.”

But the idea itself, so to speak, as it is: “With such an attitude, with such gratitude – in quotes – of this neighbor, why do we, well, for example, call our beloved Gulf of Finland? There is a proposal to return the name “Nevsky” to it.” 300 years, exactly 300 years, in 1723, Peter I, by decree, establishing, founding Kronstadt, called this gulf Kronstadt… What kind of “Gulf of Finland” is it?

To be fair, the bay was never called “Nevsky”, so there can be no talk of any “return to origins” here. “Kronstadt” – yes, it was for some time. But by historical standards, it was very short-lived. Already from the end of the 18th century, the current name was assigned to it. And it did not change, despite all the vicissitudes of the difficult relations between Russia and its former province. And let us remind you that in the history of these relations there were situations worse than the current ones.

In the 20th century alone, four major armed conflicts broke out: in 1918-1919, in 1921-1922, in 1939-1940 (the so-called “Winter War”) and in 1941-1944 (the Soviet-Finnish War as part of World War II). Perhaps with no other country did Soviet Russia and the Soviet Union fight so much and so often.

But at the same time, not only was the Gulf of Finland not renamed, but one of the “fraternal republics” was also called Finnish: in 1940, the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was withdrawn from the RSFSR and transformed into the Karelo-Finnish SSR.

It is clear that the transformation was only formal: the project was “for growth” – with an eye on Finland. But if Nikita Khrushchev, who is so often criticized in our country for transferring Crimea to Ukraine, had not returned the “prodigal” republic to Russia, then, quite possibly, the Russian Federation would have one less national autonomy today, and Finland would have one less would be one and a half times more.

Well, where else would independent Karelia go after the collapse of the USSR? In general, it’s a sin to complain about fate: it could have been worse.

Of course, to say that the Soviet government behaved with restraint regarding toponymy means, again, to seriously sin against the historical truth. But the victims of the transformative energy of the “builders of the new world” usually became oikonyms – the names of settlements.

The “builders” did not stand on ceremony with oronyms – names of relief forms of the earth’s surface. As a rule, of course, elevated forms, that is, mountains: Lenin Peak, Stalin Peak, Communism Peak, Komsomol Peak… There were also cases of renaming islands. For example, the Land of Emperor Nicholas II, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, became Severnaya Zemlya in 1926, and the island of Tsarevich Alexei, part of the same archipelago, became Lesser Taimyr.

But as far as hydronyms and names of water bodies are concerned, there is practically nothing to blame on the Bolsheviks – well, or to credit, depending on who it is. Except for the Tsaritsa River flowing through the city of Volgograd, renamed Pionerka in the mid-1920s.

Perhaps the last large body of water in Russia to be renamed for political reasons is the Ural River. Until 1775, let us recall, she was Yaik. The former name fell out of favor due to the Pugachev uprising, in which the Yaik Cossacks played a key role.

“Her Imperial Majesty most mercifully commands,” says the corresponding decree of Catherine II, “for the complete oblivion of this unfortunate incident that followed on Yaik, the Yaik River, along which both this army and the city had their name until now, due to the fact that it the river flows from the Ural Mountains, rename it the Ural, and therefore call this army Ural, and henceforth not call it Yaitsky, and the Yaitsky city will also be called Uralsk from now on, which is published herein for information and execution.”

But it is impossible not to notice that the Ural River was entirely removed in those days on the territory of one state – it both began and flowed within the Russian Empire. The same cannot be said about the Gulf of Finland, whose waters now wash the shores of three powers. Russian territorial waters are only about a third of the total area of ​​the bay. And something suggests that Nilov’s idea is unlikely to be supported on other shores.

In short, the deputy’s proposal makes no more sense than the order of the Persian king Xerxes I to carve the sea – because a storm did not allow his army to cross the Hellespont, the present-day Dardanelles, to the European coast.

However, when has our tireless servants of the people been stopped by the lack of meaning? Egg making is a simple matter.