Goodbye, Lenin

How a small town in Russia triggered outrage by ditching a few of its Soviet street names

In October 2020, acting at the behest of their district administrator, the city council of Tarusa restored the pre-revolutionary names of several Old Town streets. Proponents of the idea say the measure was necessary for reclaiming the town’s “historical authenticity” and ending the glorification of Bolsheviks and KGB agents, but many residents have been less than thrilled to lose what they consider to be Tarusa’s truly “traditional” street names. Meduza special correspondent Andrey Pertsev visited the town (about two hours south of Moscow) to find out how a handful of road signs sparked a political crisis.

The decision to revert the names of a few streets and a town square in the small community of Tarusa has provoked picketing by locals who feel the change insults their Soviet heritage. The renaming is particularly offensive to Russia’s Communists. Gennady Zyuganov, the Russian Communist Party’s septuagenarian leader, has even made a national story of the issue, accusing Tarusa of “following the path of Banderites [Ukrainian nationalists], Nazis, and fascists.”

Meduza’s correspondent attended a local protest where angry demonstrators shouted conspiracy theories about a revanchist fascist monarchy and complained about outsiders meddling in town affairs. Tarusa Mayor Elena Kotova admits that city council members (who took office about a month ago) moved forward with the renaming initiative in part because of public support from district head Ruslan Smolensky.

One political analyst in Kaluga told Meduza that Smolensky possibly engineered the scandal deliberately to boost his profile and draw national attention, though Smolensky himself told Meduza that his intentions were purely historical and that district officials have been working in Tarusa with archaeologists and Governor Vladislav Shapsha’s support. Smolensky also described Tarusa as a town that sometimes resists change, whatever its nature. (For example, he says it required herculean administrative efforts to upgrade the local dumpsters.)

Opponents of the renaming initiative insist that most Tarusa residents prefer the Soviet street names, but the region’s intelligentsia appears to support the effort to step back from glorifying Soviet figures with blood on their hands. Some intellectuals, like cardiologist and writer Maxim Osipov, even want to tear down Tarusa’s Lenin statue, though Mayor Kotova insists that the monument is too significant historically and culturally to be removed.

Ruslan Smolensky told Meduza that his office actually received threats from angry members of the public. In response, he reminds people that Russia still has 9,351 streets named after Vladimir Lenin.

Elena Kotova tries to assuage fears about “decommunization” by redirecting her constituents’ attention to fiscal matters, like the fact that local entrepreneurs and religiously devout businessman Konstantin Malofeev have agreed to pay for the road work required to change the street signs. She also stresses that residents won’t need to update their documents to accommodate the renamings (future paperwork will simply show the new names).

As a compromise of sorts, Tarusa has also offered to post plaques outside residential buildings in Old Town indicating the addresses’ old Soviet names. The Communist Party’s regional committee is still mulling over the idea.

Story by Andrey Pertsev, reporting from Tarusa

Summary by Kevin Rothrock