kiev torches
1930s 'European values' return to Ukraine, courtesy of Washington, DC
Crimean authorities have called it complete nonsense: Ukraine says it will rename some of the towns and streets of the peninsula as part of their "decommunization".

Last Saturday, in an interview with "Kraina" magazine, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Vladimir Vyatrovich, commented on Kiev's plans to rename the villages of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as well as the cities of Crimea. "Of course, Yalta will remain Yalta - we're referring to 'Komsomolskoye', 'Lenino'", etc, he said.

If the village authorities don't suggest their own variants for new names, they will be selected by the Institute and renaming will be enforced. The Verkhovna Rada intends to vote for the new names by 21st February.
"Unfortunately, there is a lot the so-called Kiev government doesn't understand. They should deal with the economy in their own country, the social problems; think about the children and the pensioners. But to do that they'd need to have at least a minimum of intellectual ability," according to Dmitry Polonsky, the Crimean Vice-Premier and Minister of Information.
He said Crimeans are no longer surprised when Kiev make reforms in a place they 'never owned and will never own'.
Sevastopol Governor Sergei Menyaylo foresaw that Kiev's delusional decisions would eventually make them even more unhappy. "Do they really need to draw attention to themselves? How will they rename Lenin street? Will they make it Catherine the Great again? That would upset Ukrainian nationalists even more".
Menyaylo noted that while renouncing their Soviet past, Kiev glorifies Ukrainians who collaborated with Nazi Germany.
"They despise their Soviet past but they glorify fascism. The Soviet past is part of the shared history of the Ukraine and Russia, and there is no way to escape it".
The names of villages, cities, squares and streets related to the Soviet and communist past are being changed and Soviet-era monuments are being dismantled across the country, since the law came into force in May 2015.