WORLD : Andropov No Longer on the Map
The Soviet Union has removed Yuri V. Andropov’s name from a city north of Moscow, Tass reported today, making him the latest former leader whose name has been wiped off Soviet maps.
Residents of the city, 150 miles north of the capital, had asked that its original name be restored, the official press agency said. A Soviet atlas published in 1986 lists the city by the name of Rybinsk with Andropov in parenthesis. The city is not listed separately under the name Andropov.
Andropov was Kremlin leader from the death of Leonid I. Brezhnev in 1982 until his death in 1984. He was succeeded by Konstantin U. Chernenko. Tass did not indicate whether stripping Rybinsk of the name Andropov had any political implications. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was a protege of the former KGB chief, who has not been widely attacked in the official media under Gorbachev.
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