The public organization called the "Center for Public Memory" has submitted a petition to the Riga City Council for yet another renaming of the streets in the city of Riga. It will soon be considered by the Riga City Council.
“The Center has appealed to all members of the Riga City Council to complete the renaming of streets in the capital that are associated with the communist totalitarian regime,” said the chairman of the center, historian Karlis Kangeris, to bb.lv.
He specified that the center wants to rename 14 streets in the capital, the names of which were formed during the period of Soviet occupation and, in the historian's opinion, are associated with the glorification of the communist totalitarian regime.
This list includes the street named after Andrei Sakharov – a person who made a significant contribution to the collapse of the communist totalitarian regime. It seems that the entire blame for the human rights activist Sakharov lies in the fact that he had a Russian surname.
The "Center for Public Memory" reported that the State Language Center has long approved the renaming of Andrei Sakharov Street to Karlis Skalbe Street. Now it is up to the members of the Riga City Council.
Then one can start fighting for the renaming of the Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought – an annual award from the European Parliament, with a monetary equivalent of 50,000 euros. It is awarded for "exceptional contributions to the struggle for freedom of thought and human rights worldwide."
Interestingly, Andrei Sakharov Street is itself a product of renaming. Until 1991, this 1,642-meter street was named after Dzerzhinsky.
As for Sakharov's successor on the street signs – Karlis Skalbe, he was a Latvian writer and public figure. Born in 1879 to a blacksmith's family, he was shaped under the influence of his mother – a very poor and very religious life. He was a member of the Saeima. In 1944, hiding from the advancing Soviet army, he emigrated to Sweden, where he died a few months later.
It should be noted that in recent years, a mass process of changing street names has been initiated in Latvia. Thus, there are no longer streets named Maskavas (Moscow), Gogol, Pushkin, Pikuls, Brantkalns, and others in Riga. The names of sections of streets are also changing - Nīcgale and Antonijas. And in Preili, for example, the street named after Sorokin has been liquidated.
