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By Country / Russia

Chechen Lawmakers Seek To Rename Grozny After Late President

December 14, 2005

Grozny in 2004 (RFE/RL)

14 December 2005 -- Chechnya's newly elected lawmakers adopted a resolution asking that the city of Grozny be renamed after the late pro-Russian President Akhmed Kadyrov.

Members of the lower house of parliament, the People's Assembly, said they would ask Russian President Vladimir Putin permission to give the city the name of Akhmatkala.

Parliamentary speaker Dukvakh Adburakhmanov justified the decision by saying the name Groznaya (literally "threatening") given the 19th-century Russian military fortress that became Grozny in 1870 "has brought the Chechen people nothing good and is associated with the darkest pages of its history."

The newsru.com information website says that, under Russian laws, any decision to change a city's name must be approved by referendum.

Kadyrov died in a suspected separatist bomb attack on 9 May 2004. His son Ramzan is first deputy prime minister in the current pro-Russian administration.

(Interfax/newsru.com)