Bucharest mulls renaming Russian embassy street to honour Alexei Navalny

The proposal comes from the local organization of the Save Romania Union party

Clotilde Armand, the mayor of District 1 in Bucharest, announced that the local representation of the Save Romanian Union (USR), of which she is a member, had raised the idea of renaming a street adjacent to the Russian embassy to bear the name of Alexei Navalny.

The proposal will be submitted as a draft resolution to honour the memory and legacy of the Russian opposition leader, who tragically lost his life last week in an Arctic penal colony. There are heavy suspicions from the global community that the Kremlin was directly involved in his demise.

If it goes through, Bucharest might become the first city to honour the charismatic Russian dissident with a street name.

Will European cities honour Navalny’s memory?

The announcement came after dozens of people gathered in front of the Russian embassy on Kiseleff Road in the Romanian capital last weekend to pay tribute to one of the most prominent critics of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That is not the street that is proposed for renaming, though. Instead, the suggestion is aimed at a side street called Tuberozelor, which is the official address of the Embassies of Belarus and Canada, however, it also has the Russian consulate section on it.

It remains to be seen whether the proposal will succeed, since at the end of last year, the councillors ultimately turned down a proposal for the renaming of Primăverii Boulevard, where members of the Communist nomenclature lived, to the name of Romanian dissident Monica Lovinescu.

Unofficially, a viewpoint in Prague near the Russian embassy there bears the name of Alexei Navalny, however, this was more of an activist stunt since the city only allows the naming of urban areas after deceased figures. Democracy activists renamed the viewpoint in 2021 when Alexei Navalny was imprisoned upon returning to Russia.