The Commission on Standardisation of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland has adopted a resolution recommending that only the Polish name of Krolewiec should be used for the Russian city of Kaliningrad.
The same applies to the Kaliningrad Oblast which will now be named the Krolewiec Oblast in the Polish language.
The name change was an initiative of local government officials, supported by a request from the development and technology minister and given a positive opinion by the foreign ministry.
“Poland returns to the traditional nomenclature related to Polish history and cultural heritage,” the Development and Technology Ministry said on Tuesday. “The name Krolewiec will be included on the maps but the change does not entail any new obligations for entrepreneurs or the need to update documents,” the ministry added.
Poland’s Minister of Development and Technology Waldemar Buda commented on the change: “We don’t want Russification in Poland and therefore we decided to change the naming in our native language of Kaliningrad and Kaliningrad Oblast, the artificial naming imposed on us, not related to our history.”
“The fact of naming a large city located close to our border after M.I. Kalinin, a criminal co-responsible for issuing the decision on the mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940, evokes negative emotions in Poles,” he added.
The resolution took effect on May 9, the day of its publication on the Commission’s website.
Source: The First News