Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday renamed dozens of the country’s airports to honor famous Russians, including tsars, space pioneers and writers.
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport is now named after national poet Alexander Pushkin, known for works such as Eugene Onegin, while the airport in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on far eastern Sakhalin Island will take writer Anton Chekhov’s name, DW reports.
Chekhov visited the island but only to write about the grim conditions in its tsarist-era prisons.
The new names were chosen using an online poll launched last autumn that asked the public to nominate and vote for famous figures whose names could be given to some 40 airports in Russia.
Most of the country’s airports had been named after their geographical location, usually the names of villages.
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