Alexandra Dadasheva
IN THE PROVINCES
To date, there has been only one street named after Vladimir Putin. One of the two streets in the village of Olgeti in Ingushetia was named after Russia's second President on October 5, 2002. Reportedly, the local people had themselves asked that the street be named after the President "as a token of gratitude to the authorities for assistance in the reconstruction of the village, which was destroyed in a mud slide".
In May 2007, Eduard Kozhemyakin, a United Russia deputy of the Novosibirsk City Council, proposed at the regional party conference that the Lenin District be renamed as the Putin District. The proposal was rejected.
In July 2007, Vitaly Gorban, the chief architect of Yoshkar-Ola, announced that a new street being built alongside the Malaya Kokshaga River might be named after Mr Putin, but the local authorities killed the project.
In December 2007, a group of citizens proposed that the new city that would be formed through the merger of Saratov and Engels be named after Putin, but the idea of the merger of the cities never got off the ground.
People often use Vladimir Putin's name to protect themselves from being bullied by the authorities. In November 2005, residents of Nekrasov Street in Vladivostok who were protesting plans to build a 16-storeyed block of flats set up a children's playground on the proposed construction site and adorned it with posters that read: "Our Russian Children's Playground Named after Vladimir Putin". As a result, the construction project was abandoned.
In November 2006, the residents of several houses in Ulan-Ude slated for demolition declared the neighbourhood to be a "Vladimir Putin Village." However, it had no influence on the authorities and the neighbourhood was torn down.
