«Nobody wants to do it»: In Zavodskyi district of Mykolaiv, replacement of street signs with new names is delayed due to lack of contractors

The sign to be replaced on the building, 18 Yevhenii Lohinov Street, photo: NikVesti

In Zavodskyi district of Mykolaiv, it is planned to install signs with new street names, but the process is delayed due to the lack of contractors.

This was reported by the head of the Zavodskyi district administration, Viktor Dmytruk, in a comment to NikVesti.

As you know, it is the responsibility of the city's district administrations to install signs with the new street names in Mykolaiv.

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According to Viktor Dmytruk, new signs have already been made for houses at intersections, in particular on Yevhenii Lohinov and Oleksa Almazov streets, and they should be installed by the end of the year.

«Currently, there is a problem with the guys who could physically replace the signs, because no one wants to do it, because it is not enough money for the contractor. However, we plan to replace them. We have already made the signs at the intersections and they should be installed by the end of the year. But in the yards, it will happen a little later. I can't say yet who will do it. At the intersections where Krylov (Yevhenii Lohinov, — note) and Almazov streets are located, we will install place names, we will do it by the end of the year,» he said.

Renaming place names in Mykolaiv

In April 2023, the Mykolaiv City Council adopted a new regulation on renaming place names to get rid of all Russian names in the city. Afterwards, the deputy commission on law and order approved a new version of the regulation on the activities of the toponymy commission, which was responsible for renaming streets.

In particular, Mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych reported that the city had a toponymy commission that dealt with street renaming, but its composition needed to be updated.

In August of the same year, it became known that the toponymy commission had not started working. Due to the recusal of one of the candidates, the city council members had to renew the composition of the commission. At a session on 7 September, members of the Mykolaiv City Council approved the new composition of the toponymic commission. Major General Dmytro Marchenko was included, but with the note «in agreement with». The name of Dmytro Marchenko was one of the names in whose honour Mykolaiv residents propose to rename the city's streets. The proposal was submitted by 32 respondents. However, the general himself opposed the idea.

In October 2023, the commission published the first proposals for renaming streets as part of the decolonisation process. In particular, Yurii Liubarov, the head of the culture department of the Mykolaiv City Council, who is also a member of the toponymic commission, said that Falieievska Street, named after the city's first citizen, was not subject to the renaming law.

In January 2024, the work of the toponymic commission was completed in Mykolaiv, with about 250 streets being prepared for renaming. The chairman of the commission, Oleksandr Tryhub, told which streets will receive new names in accordance with the modern Ukrainian spelling and historical context. Among the central streets to be renamed are Liahina, Pushkinska, Potemkinska and Admiral Makarov.

The commission also proposed renaming 40 streets after those who fell in the Russian-Ukrainian war as part of the decolonisation process.

In February, language ombudsman Taras Kremin criticised the pace of renaming in Mykolaiv region. He said that the south had once suffered the most from Russification, but that the region was being stripped of its Russian names very slowly.

On 1 May, the Mykolaiv City Council launched an online poll where residents can choose new place names in the city.

At the same time, the director of the Mykolaiv Zoo, Volodymyr Topchyi, spoke out against renaming streets without taking into account the historical factor, citing Liahin, Falieievska and Potemkinska streets as examples, emphasising their historical significance for Mykolaiv.