Dot Wordsworth

The strangeness of station names

[iStock] 
issue 28 May 2022

In Kyiv they have voted to change the names of some metro stations. Heroes of the Dnieper is to become Heroes of Ukraine. The station was named after the street outside, and there’s nothing wrong with the river Dnieper, which winds its S-shape through Ukraine like the Grand Canal through Venice.

The trouble was that the counter-offensive in 1943 by the Soviet Union against the German invaders made much propaganda of a united effort by all nations under the Marxist flag, even though Stalin had not so long before presided over a famine that killed millions in Ukraine.

Another Kyiv metro station is changing its name from Minsk to Warsaw. Again there is nothing wrong with Minsk. It was an ornament to the wireless tuner, along with Hilversum and other mysterious transmitting spots. It just happens that Belarus, of which Minsk is the capital, is run by a tyrant and enemy of Ukraine.

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