Chechnya is puttin’ Putin back on its streets.
A person who was Prime Minister of Russia when its troops crushed a separatist rebellion in the republic (a region of Russia technically) in 1999, is now on the Chechen map permanently.
Almost a mile-long central street of Grozny, Chechnya’s capital, now holds the name of Putin Avenue, or Проспект Путина (pros-PEKT Putina) in Russian.
The street used to be the Victory Street, a very common Soviet-era name in memory of the Great Patriotic War (WWII) victory. Now, according to Chechnya’s president Ramzan Kadyrov (rahm-ZAHN kah-DI-rof), it commemorates the “person, who’s done so much for the country and all of us.”
The street’s re-opening after reconstruction began a month-long celebration of 420 years since the “establishment of a good-neighborly relationship between the people of Russia and Chechnya,” RIA Novosti reports.
The New York Times article on the event (interestingly enough) omits this fact, but briefly outlines the latest events in the “good-neighborly relationship.”
