A Note on Place Names

Home , Mikhail Kalinin, Nikita Khrushchev, Oka (river), Samara (Volga), Sheksna, Tvertsa

A NOTE ON PLACE NAMES

A considerable number of the towns cited in the text, mostly on the Volga, changed names at various times (usually, but not always, in the Soviet period). The following places appear more than once in the text. They are listed below in alphabetical order by their current name, but the name used most commonly in the text is highlighted in bold.

DIMITROVGRAD – MELEKESS (1714–1972), DIMITROVGRAD (1972–)

A village in Simbirsk/Ulianovsk province, situated at the confluence of the river Melekesska and the Bolshoi Cheremshan, which is a tributary of the Volga. Melekess was named after the river; it was renamed in 1972 to honour Georgi Dimitrov, the Bulgarian revolutionary and first leader of the communist People’s Republic of Bulgaria. It has retained this name.

ENGELS – POKROVSKAIA SLOBODA (1747–1914), ALSO KNOWN AS KOSAKENSTADT, POKROVSK (1914–31), ENGELS (1931–)

Engels is in Saratov province, on the left bank (eastern side) of the Volga, opposite the town of Saratov. The town was founded as Pokrovskaia Sloboda (sloboda means settlement in this context). It was given town status as Pokrovsk in 1914, and in 1918 became the capital of the short-lived German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The town was also commonly known as Kosakenstadt (‘Cossack town’ in German) from the eighteenth century. In 1931, it was renamed Engels in honour of Friedrich Engels, and that name has been retained.

xiv A NOTE ON PLACE NAMES IOSHKAR-OLA – TSAREVOKOKSHAISK (1584–1919), KRASNOKOKSHAISK (1919–27), IOSHKAR-OLA (1927–)

The town is situated on the river Malaia Kokshaga. It was founded in 1584 after the death of Ivan IV as the ‘tsar’s town on the river Kokshaga’, on territory which had been within the khanate of Kazan. It was renamed Krasnokokshaisk, the ‘town on the red Kokshaga river’. The old Mari name for the town was Charla. The town was renamed in 1927 and means ‘red city’ in Mari. It is now the capital of the Mari El Republic, a federal republic within the Russian Federation, which borders the river Volga in the west.

NIZHNII NOVGOROD – NIZHNII NOVGOROD (1221–1932), GORKII (1932–90), NIZHNII NOVGOROD (1990–)

The town was founded in 1221 by Prince Iurii of Vladimir at the confluence of the Volga and Oka rivers. Between 1932 and 1990 it was named after the writer Maksim Gorky (the pen name of Aleksei Peshkov), who was born in Nizhnii Novgorod in 1868 and located some of his stories there. The name reverted to Nizhnii Novgorod in 1990.

ORAL – IAITSK (1613–1775), URALSK (1775–1991), ORAL (1991–)

The town was founded in 1613 as a Cossack fort on the river Iaik. After the suppression of the Pugachev revolt, the town was renamed Uralsk and the river was renamed the Ural. The town is now in the independent state of Kazakhstan and was renamed Oral in 1991.

ORENBURG – ORENBURG (1734–1938), CHKALOV (1938–57), ORENBURG (1957–)

The town was founded in 1734, although its location changed over the next decade, at the confluence of the Ural (formerly Iaik) and Samara rivers. It was chosen as the location of the Muslim Spiritual Assembly from 1788 until 1917 and had jurisdic- tion over Muslims in Kazan and elsewhere on the Volga (and in Siberia). It was capital of the short-lived Kirgiz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic from 1920 to 1925 and then became part of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. The city was renamed Chkalov from 1938 to 1957 in honour of the test pilot Valerii Chkalov.

xv A NOTE ON PLACE NAMES RYBINSK – UST-SHEKSNA (C. 1071–1504), RYBNAIA SLOBODA (1504–1777), RYBINSK (1777–1946), SHCHERBAKOV (1946–57), RYBINSK (1957–84), ANDROPOV (1984–89), RYBINSK (1989–)

Rybinsk wins the award for the most name changes! It was founded as the settlement of Ust-Sheksna (meaning ‘at the mouth of the river Sheksna’). From 1504, it was known as Rybnaia Sloboda (‘the fishing settlement’) until 1777, when it was renamed Rybinsk and re-categorized as a town because of its important location for transporting goods from the Volga to the canal system which linked the Volga with St Petersburg. From 1946 to 1957, Rybinsk was named in honour of Aleksandr Shcherbakov, a Soviet politician, and then between 1984 and 1989 in honour of Iurii Andropov, general secretary of the Communist Party from 1982 until his death in 1984 (he was educated at the Rybinsk Water Transport Technical College and was at one time secretary of the Young Communist League at the College and then at Rybinsk shipyard). The town reverted to the name Rybinsk in 1989. I have never seen an account of the costs of such frequent name changes.

ST PETERSBURG – ST PETERSBURG (1703–1914), PETROGRAD (1914–24), LENINGRAD (1924–91), ST PETERSBURG (1991–)

St Petersburg (Sankt Peterburg in Russian; its first name was Sankt-Piter-Burkh, which is in origin a Dutch name) was founded by Peter I in 1703, on the site of the small Swedish fort of Nyenskans. In September 1914, after the outbreak of the First World War, the city was renamed Petrograd (‘Peter’s town’) to remove the German-sounding words of ‘Sankt’ and ‘Burg’. In 1924, it was renamed Leningrad in honour of Vladimir Lenin, five days after Lenin’s death. It reverted to St Petersburg in 1991.

SAMARA – SAMARA (1586–1935), KUIBYSHEV (1935–91), SAMARA (1991–)

Samara was founded in 1586 on the left bank (eastern side) of the river Samara and named after it; the city is located at the confluence of the Samara and Volga rivers. It was named Kuibyshev from 1935 to 1991 in honour of Valerian Kuibyshev, Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician, who was president of the Samara soviet in 1917 and chaired the revolutionary committee of Samara province during the Civil War. The name reverted to Samara in 1991.

xvi A NOTE ON PLACE NAMES TOLIATTI (OR TOGLIATTI) – STAVROPOL (1737–1964), TOLIATTI (1964–)

Stavropol (‘the city of the cross’) was founded in 1737 as a fortress for Buddhist Kalmyks who had converted to Orthodoxy. It is on the left bank (eastern side) of the river Volga in Samara province, and was sometimes referred to as Stavropol-on- Volga to distinguish it from the town of the same name in south-west Russia. The town had to be built on a new site after the construction of the Kuibyshev dam and hydroelectric station which created the Kuibyshev reservoir and which flooded the original town. The new town was called Toliatti (or Togliatti) in honour of Palmiro Togliatti, the secretary of the Italian Communist Party from 1927 to 1964, in part because it was home to an enormous factory producing Lada cars, which originally received technical assistance from Fiat. It has retained the name Toliatti.

TVER – TVER (C. 1135–1931), KALININ (1931–90), TVER (1990–)

Tver was founded at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers in around 1135; it is located on both banks of the Volga. It was renamed Kalinin between 1931 and 1990 in honour of Mikhail Kalinin, Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician, who was born in a village in Tver province. The name reverted to Tver in 1991.

ULIANOVSK – SIMBIRSK (1648–1924), ULIANOVSK (1924–)

The town was founded in 1648 on the right bank (western side) of the river Volga. In 1924, the town was renamed Ulianovsk in honour of Lenin (Vladimir Ilich Ulianov), who was born there in 1870 and lived there until he enrolled in Kazan University in 1887. The town has retained the name Ulianovsk.

VOLGOGRAD – TSARITSYN (C. 1589–1925), STALINGRAD (1925–61), VOLGOGRAD (1961–)

Tsaritsyn was founded at the confluence of the Volga and Tsaritsa rivers (hence the name Tsaritsyn, which has nothing to do with tsars – it means ‘yellow water’ or ‘yellow river’ in Tatar). It was renamed Stalingrad in 1925, in recognition of the role Joseph Stalin allegedly played in the defence of the town against the Whites in the Civil War. It was renamed Volgograd in 1961 as part of the de-Stalinization process inaugurated by Nikita Khrushchev after Stalin’s death. The town has retained the name Volgograd, although there have been calls for it to revert to Stalingrad.

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