Lawyers explain mechanism for renaming Volgograd
The official procedure for renaming Volgograd to Stalingrad, which President Putin “promised to think about,” involves a long sequence of bureaucratic steps, but can be implemented without a referendum.
The final decision on renaming the city of Volgograd to Stalingrad may be made “only by the federal centre,” since, according to the Federal Law “On the Names of Geographical Objects”, the renaming of administrative centres of Russian regions “is carried out by federal laws,” explains international law expert Roman Melnichenko.
According to the lawyer’s note, the procedure was specifically defined in such a way as to “make the renaming as difficult as possible.”
The process begins with an application for renaming, which should be submitted together with a package of necessary documents to the Volgograd Regional Duma. The application may be submitted “by anyone, for example, two citizens of the Russian Federation are enough.” Then the application and the package of documents are to be checked by the relevant committee of the Volgograd Regional Duma, after that the governor’s conclusion on the proposal should be made, and then the Volgograd Regional Duma issues a resolution on the referendum. Then a regional referendum should be held, “in which more than half of the participants must vote for renaming,” Roman Melnichenko explained.
“Then the Volgograd Regional Duma approves – if more than 50% of the referendum participants supported it – or rejects the proposal on renaming. And the process ends with the renaming, which must be formalized by federal law, but the proposal can also be rejected at this stage,” the expert pointed out.
At the same time, on May 5, the Volgograd Region administration announced that they had not received any requests with an initiative to hold a referendum on renaming the city of Volgograd to Stalingrad that and “no one is collecting signatures for such an initiative.” However, an informed source of the “Kommersant”, close to the leadership of the Volgograd Region administration, believes that 2025 is the “last opportunity” to change the name of the city. “This is both the 80th anniversary of the Victory and the 100th anniversary of the renaming (Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad in April 1925). After all these reasons have passed, there will simply be no need for anyone to push through the renaming. So, perhaps, we should expect that the issue will fade away with the renaming of the airport. Although, of course, it is worth waiting for May 9,” the “Kommersant” quotes the source as stating.
“So far, the idea of returning Stalingrad does not enjoy the support of Volgograd residents: according to the Russian Public Opinion Research Centre (known as VTsIOM), in January 2023, 67% of the city residents questioned were against the renaming of the city. However, at the end of that year, amendments were made to the regional laws, according to which a referendum on renaming, if initiated, will be held throughout the region, and not just in Volgograd. However, after that, the activities to prepare for the referendum were actually stopped,” the “Stalingrad Can Wait” publication says.
The initiative to rename any geographical object in Russia may be put forward by federal authorities, public associations, legal entities, and even any citizen of the country, lawyer Sergey Ivaschenko notes with reference to the same federal law on names. The lawyer has also clarified that the concept of a “geographical object” includes both populated areas, airports, and stations, as well as natural objects.
“Volgograd is not a city of federal significance, and it is of regional significance. Its renaming will be carried out on the proposal of the legislative body of state power of the subject, that is, the Volgograd Regional Duma.”
The expert has noted that the financing of the activities on renaming Volgograd will fall on the regional budget if the initiative to rename “comes from the depths of the Volgograd Regional Duma.” However, if the same initiative comes from the federal authorities, all subsequent expenses will be compensated from the federal budget. According to the estimates by some experts (one of them is economist Igor Belskikh), the “minimum bar” of expenses related to renaming Volgograd may amount to two billion roubles, lawyer Sergey Ivaschenko has added.
According to the lawyer’s explanation, the process of renaming the city will end after the new toponym is entered into the State Catalogue of Geographical Names.
The expert emphasizes that the law also allows for a referendum to be avoided, limiting itself to “the expression of the will of either the president or other statesmen.” Sergey Ivaschenko has also noted that the initiative to hold a referendum “cannot be put forward and a referendum cannot be appointed and held under martial law or a state of emergency introduced in the country” (Article 7 of the Federal Constitutional Law No. 5-FKZ “On the Referendum of the Russian Federation”), and although no martial law or a state of emergency has been introduced in the Volgograd Region at the moment, such a condition cannot be ruled out in the future.
“The situation in the country is changing so quickly that legal regimes may be announced that will exclude the possibility of implementing the process of renaming Volgograd. Therefore, the federal authorities are in no hurry with this renaming, although, judging by the speeches of people in power, they like this idea,” Sergey Ivaschenko has suggested.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on May 7, 2025 at 02:36 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.