On Ukraine's front line, one town wants its old name back: New York
By Sergiy Karazy and Margaryta Chornokondratenko
NOVHORODSKE, Ukraine (Reuters) - A huge banner reading "New York" hangs over the town hall entrance and a bakery with the same name sells coffee and croissants.
But instead of a bustling Manhattan skyline, this town is dominated by an old phenol factory and Communist-era apartment blocks, and scarred on one side by trenches that have been dug through deserted streets.
Formerly called New York, Novhorodske lies on the front line of Ukraine's war with Russian-backed separatists in its eastern Donbass region.
It was renamed in 1951 during the Cold War. Now some locals are campaigning to change it back, and parliament could vote on the issue as soon as this week.
Currently, "the town's territory is not protected," said local council head Mykola Lenko, adding that five residents had been killed since the start of the separatist conflict.
Restoring its historic name would hopefully mean "some economic success and that the town will develop," he said.
"We hope that we will establish contacts with Jork in Germany and New York in the United States."
While the precise origin of the town's old name is unclear, German immigrants, followers of the Mennonite Church, settled in what is now Ukraine around the turn of 19th century at the invitation of Russian Empress Catherine the Great.
Their descendants were deported following Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Some of their families used to pay visits to Novhorodske but these stopped when fighting broke out in 2014.
Once an industrial town, it fell into decline after the First World War.
Now soldiers, manning checkpoints just one kilometre (0.6 miles) from separatist lines, patrol the trenches on its outskirts, where more than 100 houses have been damaged by shelling.
Ceasefire violations in the Donbass conflict have surged recently, with Kyiv and Moscow trading blame over the rising violence.
Town council secretary Tetyana Krasko said Novhorodske was renamed because "the Soviet Union's citizens believed that the name of New York was a sign of capitalism."
For some residents, rather than debating another renaming, local authorities should focus on generating employment and helping those in need.
"Everyone leaves, there are no jobs here. I would like to leave too," said Svitlana, a fishmonger.
(Editing by Matthias Williams and John Stonestreet)
