The Ukrainian parliament has renamed the town of Novhorodske (Bakhmut district, Donetsk region) into New York after 301 members voted for draft resolution No. 5081 on Thursday.
The request to rename the town had been submitted to the Verkhovna Rada by Donetsk Regional Military-Civilian Administration.
The town is part of the Toretsk municipality and is situated 42 kilometers from the district center of Bakhmut. When the issue was raised, the town was the administrative center of the Novhorodske rural council. The town has a population of around 12,000 people.
The idea to rename the town came from its residents, who wanted to return its historical name.
The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory said that Novhorodske was returned its historical name of New York under Article 5 of the law on geographic names whereby geographical renaming is effected, in particular, where it is “necessary to return certain geographic sites their historic names.” The town had changed its name to Novhorodske on October 19, 1951 for the political ideological reasons of the Communist Party, the institute said.
