Stalingrad returns (but only for a day)

[astronelson 339]

The Russian city of Volgograd will officially be renamed Stalingrad on Saturday, 2nd of February, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.

The modern name, granted to the city during de-Stalinisation, will return on Sunday, 3rd of February.

The legislation passed means the city can be officially called Stalingrad on this date, and four others, every year.

The city council made this decision to please the approximately 920 veterans of the 200-day battle still living in the city, with the approval of President Vladimir Putin.

President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the festivities also scheduled for the day.

Read more here.

[Cefien 361]

Ah, reminds me of Vasili Zaytzev..

[Duke87 1,070]

Da, comrade. In Soviet Russia, city rename you!

Silliness aside, I get why they're doing this, even if it does seem odd. Typically Russian, though, that government approval is required to refer to the city by its old name.

[astronelson 339]

Da, comrade. In Soviet Russia, city rename you!

Silliness aside, I get why they're doing this, even if it does seem odd. Typically Russian, though, that government approval is required to refer to the city by its old name.

From my understanding you can informally refer to the city as Stalingrad any time you want, this just means that on five days of the year it can be referred to by that name in official capacities as well.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Considering the historic echoes, all bad, that are associated with that name, I am surprised that they'd appease even a few old vets.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Considering the historic echoes, all bad, that are associated with that name, I am surprised that they'd appease even a few old vets.

Russians tend to think differently of their former comrade leader. Stalin still gets points for beating the fascist beast during the great patriotic war, almost on its own (the Russians certainly got hit the hardest). Furthermore, compared to the other corrupt clowns and incompetent idiots that followed him, he looks pretty good. Imagine how low Russians must think of everyone else if they think Stalin was a harsh leader who turned Russia into a superpower?

To be honest, I can't entirely blame them. Stalin did pretty much turn Russia from a backward agriculture based economy into an industrial and military superpower rivaling the United States.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Yes, but he certainly didn't think very hard when he decided to starve the Ukraine to death. I think if you check you'll find he condemned to death more people than Hitler. Stalin only valued his own life, no others.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Yes, but he certainly didn't think very hard when he decided to starve the Ukraine to death. I think if you check you'll find he condemned to death more people than Hitler. Stalin only valued his own life, no others.

I know, and still, the Russians like him quite a bit. I think they had to remove his name a few years ago when they held a Russian leader popularity contest, because he was winning.

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

Awww. I rather liked Alexander.

[LexusInfernus 908]

Which one?

[A Nonny Moose 8,263]

The last one. He was a grandson of Queen Victoria.

[Odainsaker 2,137]

I think you may mean Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar, who was a cousin to the British royal family. His wife Empress Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Their son, the last tsarevich Alexei, is a tragic icon of the doomed Russian dynasty due to his hemophilia, which he inherited through his carrier mother as a great-grandson of the carrier Queen Victoria, and for which a desperate and guilt-ridden Alexandra blindly turned to the mad monk Rasputin for guidance.

The last ruling Alexander of Russia would be Nicholas II's father, the conservative Alexander III, who opted to suppress the reforms of his assassinated father, Alexander II. A contemporary of Abraham Lincoln, Alexander II emancipated the serfs and signed a decree creating an elected duma and potentially a constitutional monarchy. Fearing that reform would threaten their own revolutionary cause, radicals bombed Alexander II's carriage just before that decree was unveiled. The heir Alexander III immediately tore apart his father's parliament decree, resumed repressive police crackdowns, and instilled in his soft son the need to be devoutly stern when challenged by liberalism. Instead, Nicholas II would be left inept at reconciling the imperial prerogatives of the tsarist autocracy with the awakening demands of the people, and was first deposed by a moderate liberal revolution, and then executed along with his family after the radical Bolshevik revolution.

Alexander I, the grandson of Catherine the Great, was the tsar whose generals brought about the grinding defeat of Napoleon by allowing Moscow to burn. After his great victory made Russia the dominant land power, he was a player at Prince Metternich's Congress of Vienna that decided the balance of power in Europe almost all the way up till World War I.

______________________

I wonder if the pre-revolutionary name "Tsaritsyn" can still be found in modern Volgograd.

[Muck308 55]

My buddy still has an old globe with names like Stalingrad and Leningrad. It's fun to look at it on occasion and take note of how much has changed in terms of geography. But, then again, I'm a geography nerd. I was talking to a trucker last week who challenged me to name a place in the lower 48 that I had been but he had not. I finally got him with Hot Springs, VA.

Despite the legacy Stalin left behind, I like the idea of adopting the old name a few days out of the year. At the very least, it forces remembrance.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

My buddy still has an old globe with names like Stalingrad and Leningrad. It's fun to look at it on occasion and take note of how much has changed in terms of geography. But, then again, I'm a geography nerd. I was talking to a trucker last week who challenged me to name a place in the lower 48 that I had been but he had not. I finally got him with Hot Springs, VA.

Despite the legacy Stalin left behind, I like the idea of adopting the old name a few days out of the year. At the very least, it forces remembrance.

This reminds me of a campaign in my state to legally change the name of the town Speed, Victoria to SpeedKills in an attempt to raise awareness of road trauma. It kept this name for a month.

[SteveMSim 275]

If anyone thinks that Stalin was a baddie because he had even more people killed than Hitler, that's because Stalin lasted longer than Hitler and Stalin did not start a world war.  But these two were just junior tyrants compared to Mao Zedong, who may be responsible for over 50 million deaths.  I was just reading about Mao's Great Leap Forward in the late '50s and '60s, which lead to a famine that claimed as many as 35 million lives.  The Great Leap Forward, which was Mao's attempt to modernize China and make it a superpower equal to the United States and the Soviet Union, was followed by the Cultural Revolution, whose atrocities are well known.  Also there are the several million Chinese "Enemies of the State" executed for "Crimes against the People" in the years immediately following the 1949 revolution.  Mao Zedong is still officially revered today, with his embalmed corpse at one end of Tienanmen Square now attracting more people than Lenin's.