Who gets to choose the city name?

Was there a survey?

I think few people will argue with the fact that the decision on choosing the name of the city should be made not by officials, but by the citizens themselves. But is this really so?

Events to identify popular opinion were held in Tutaev twice, on March 17, 1991 and February 27, 1994, and both times the majority of townspeople (54.8% and 64.6%, respectively) opposed the renaming. In both cases, the opinion of Tutaev residents was revealed through a survey conducted on the day of elections of government bodies. Citizens who came to polling stations were given questionnaires along with ballot papers. And the survey results were approved by the district council and then officially published in the newspaper.

In mid-February of this year, by decision of the municipal council of the city settlement, another so-called survey was conducted, but it was not published either in the municipal newspaper "Tutaev City Weekly" or on the official website of the city administration (http://admtutaev.ru). information about points where you can fill out questionnaires. The city authorities forgot to inform the population about the methods of conducting the survey, and most importantly, who and how will summarize its results.

Therefore, it is quite reasonable for many Tutaev residents to doubt the objectivity of this event - or maybe the “survey” was not conducted to identify the real opinion of city residents, but only to collect the required number of signatures in support of the renaming initiative. It is also surprising that neither the official results of the survey nor the decision of the city council to approve the results of this event have been published.

Although, of course, the results of the survey do not have legal force, being only advisory in nature, in the future they can be used by the initiators of the renaming as evidence confirming the support of the Tutaevites for the initiative they put forward.

About the procedures. Will deputies decide for the people?

Just the other day, namely on April 2, Governor Sergei Yastrebov signed the regional law “On certain issues of naming geographical objects and renaming geographical objects.” According to this law, proposals to rename geographical objects can be made by federal authorities, authorities of the Yaroslavl region, local governments, as well as public associations, legal entities and even ordinary citizens.

Documents justifying such a proposal and calculations of the necessary costs for this are sent to the Yaroslavl Regional Duma. Regional deputies, in turn, send them for conclusion to the regional governor and the Public Chamber.

In addition, the law says that deputies must inform the population of the relevant territories about the necessary costs and elicit their opinion on these proposals.

And this is where the fun begins! Paragraph 2 of Article 7 reads as follows: “The population’s opinion on these proposals is expressed by the representative bodies of the municipalities of the Yaroslavl region, on the territory of which the corresponding geographical objects are located.” In other words, neither a referendum nor a survey will be held to determine the opinion of the population. The decision on behalf of the people will be made by local deputies.

Next, the regional Duma, taking into account the governor’s conclusion, “population opinion,” and proposals from the Public Chamber, makes a decision to approve or reject the renaming initiative. If approved, the documentation is sent for examination to the relevant government body of the Russian Federation, where the final decision is made.

How much does a name cost?

Renaming any locality entails not only financial expenses from budgets of various levels and from the pockets of individuals and legal entities, but also additional inconveniences associated with the re-registration of the statutory documents of all legal entities and individual entrepreneurs, the replacement of international passports, and in some cases, passports citizen of the Russian Federation. So, for example, in the city of Biryuch (until 2005, the village of Krasnogvardeyskoye) an annual period for changing registration was established. Re-registration cost 35 rubles, 10 of which were paid by the administration. ("Business newspaper Yug", http://www.dg-yug.ru). And according to estimates of the Volgograd City Hall, if the city is renamed, changing citizens’ passports will cost the federal budget 101.8 million rubles, plus about 177 million rubles of citizens’ personal expenses for fees (IA “REGNUM”, http://www.regnum.ru).

It will be necessary to make changes to the documentation of government authorities at various levels, to maps and atlases, and also, which is perhaps the most expensive, to make changes to existing transport schedules and transport information systems.