Moscow to Erase Communist-Era Street Names

A mass renaming of Moscow’s streets and subway stops is expected to erase almost all Communist-era names--including Karl Marx’s--from the capital, a newspaper said today.

“Karl Marx Prospekt is giving way to Hunter’s Row,” the daily Moscovsky Komsomolets said. “Thirty streets will be getting back their old names.”

Two of the renamed streets, however, will be quite modern. One will be named for the late American civil rights champion Martin Luther King Jr. and the other for the late French President Charles de Gaulle.

In a gratuitous dig, the newspaper said the renamings recommended by a committee of the Moscow City Council are a “present for Nov. 7,” the holiday that marks the day Communists seized power in Russia in 1917.

The municipal panel also decided to rename 10 metro stations, striking at the very symbol of the Soviet era. The metro was built in the 1930s, and no expense was spared on marble, chandeliers and statues for each palatial station.

“We will for the time being not give the new names of the metro stations,” the newspaper said playfully.

Although the full City Council must still approve the name changes, it is now controlled by radicals and will almost certainly give the go-ahead.

“Swept away will be the streets named for Dzerzhinsky, Frunze and Kalinin,” Moscovsky Komsomolets said.

Felix Dzerzhinsky was the first head of the KGB, Mikhail Frunze was head of the Red Army briefly under Josef Stalin and Mikhail Kalinin was the figurehead Soviet president when Stalin ruled the country as party leader.

Kalinin, who had peasant roots, was particularly hated for what Russians believe was his silence while Stalin either had killed or sent millions of wealthy farmers into exile for resisting the collectivization of their land and equipment.

Another famous Communist whose name will be erased from Moscow’s topography is Yuri V. Andropov, the late KGB chief and onetime Soviet leader who was the reputed mentor of President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.