MOSCOW, August 16 (RIA Novosti) – A former Latvian lawmaker has opened an eco-village named after the USSR, an addition to his earlier real estate projects named after Russian and American leaders, media reports said.
The village, whose name bears the Soviet Union’s Cyrillic acronym, “CCCP,” was unveiled late last month near Latvia’s capital, Riga, the NewsBalt agency reported.
The village, comprising some 110 land plots, is part of a real estate project by former Latvian lawmaker Alexei Kholostov, who stood up for its pro-Soviet name by saying it referred to the good of the past.
The name is likely to irk officials in the Baltic state, which in June prohibited displaying Soviet symbols in public.
“We are not communists; we are not planning to build communism. It’s impossible and unnecessary,” Kholostov told NewsBalt. “But there were a lot of good things in the USSR: friendship of peoples, confidence in the future, special guarantees and free education,” he said, conceding that there were “negative” aspects too, such as repressions and lack of freedom of speech.
His company, Blagodat, already has five other villages, which look more like luxurious gated communities, including Putinka, named after Russian President Vladimir Putin, Medvedevka, after Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and the Obama Eco-Village.
Earlier this year, the Latvian State Language Center said the former politician would have to rename villages because their current names contradict Latvian regulations.
The center’s deputy director, Agris Timuska, told the Russkaya Germaniya (Russian Germany) newspaper that “Kholostov was acting on his own and would have to rename to his settlements, giving them names that are more appropriate and understandable for Latvia.”
