On December 2, the toponymy commission of the Izyum city administration approved the renaming of 22 city streets. Among them is Turgenev Street, named after the first president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev.
The renaming affected all streets whose names were in one way or another connected with Russian culture. Moskovskaya Street became Ivan Mazepa Street. Suvorov Street - Simon Petliura Street. Lomonosov Street was named in honor of Roman Ratushny, a Euromaidan participant and military volunteer who died near Izyum.
Deputy head of Izyum Vladimir Matsokin announced the renaming of the streets on Facebook and, judging by the comments under his post, not all city residents agree with this decision of the toponymy commission. Most of all, commentators objected to Stepan Bandera Street.
After the Russian invasion began, a wave of “derussification” of toponyms passed through Ukraine. Thus, in the village of Karnaukhovka, Dnepropetrovsk region, 16 streets and alleys were renamed. As a result, a street named after the Chechen Sheikh Mansur (formerly Pushkin Street) appeared here, in whose honor one of the volunteer battalions fighting on the side of the Ukrainian Armed Forces against Russia was named.
Earlier, a street named after the President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Dzhokhar Dudayev, appeared in Kyiv. This decision was made at a plenary meeting of the city council on the initiative of the inter-factional association “For a Free Caucasus”.
Soviet Army General Dzhokhar Dudayev was the leader of the Chechen independence movement and in 1991 became the first president of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He died on April 21, 1996, when Russian intelligence services detected a signal from his satellite phone near the village of Gekhi-chu and fired missiles at the area from Su-25 attack aircraft. Streets bear his name in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Turkey.
The widow of Dzhokhar Dudayev, Alla Dudayeva, on her Facebook page expressed gratitude to the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko and deputies of the Kyiv City Council for the decision to name the street in his honor and wished the Ukrainians a speedy victory over the Russian government.
Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexey Goncharenko called the renaming of streets in honor of the leaders of Ichkeria an important political signal.
“After recognizing Chechnya as an occupied territory and the genocide of the Chechen people, we demonstrate faith in a free Ichkeria. We believe that the Chechen people will achieve independence just like other peoples of the Caucasus,” he told the Kavkaz.Realii publication.
The city of Izyum, Kharkov region of Ukraine, was occupied by Russian waxes for almost six months (from April to September 2022). As a result of continuous shelling, it was almost completely destroyed.