Question of the day: what will the war of city names between Russia and Azerbaijan lead to?

The new round of confrontation began three days ago when TASS reported on the demolition of a monument to the artist Aivazovsky in the main city of Karabakh, calling Khankendi Stepanakert in accordance with Armenian tradition.

And although this city was officially called that until the fall of 2023, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry immediately and categorically assessed this as “disrespect and insult to the territorial integrity” of the country. The diplomatic agency threatened that in the event of further “distortion of Azerbaijani toponyms,” official Baku would use the original names and names of Russian cities.

Thus, Kaliningrad will turn into Königsberg, Orenburg into Orynbor, Volgograd will again become Sarysu, Grozny Solzhenzhelom, Novorossiysk - Sudzhuk-Kale, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk will receive the Japanese name Toyohara, Yuzhno-Kurilsk - Furukamappu), and the great Russian river Volga will be called Itil.

It is worth noting that the Russian news agency did not bother to find out who was right and who was wrong in the issue of toponyms, and replaced the name of the former Stepanakert with Khankendi. At this point, the conflict could have been considered exhausted, but Azerbaijani media added fuel to the fire of passions, which began to "rename" Russian cities in their materials.

These efforts did not go unnoticed in the State Duma - and now in an interview RTVI First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs Konstantin Zatulin raises the temperature of the controversy:

"As for the renaming of Russian cities and geographical concepts that Azerbaijan has decided to carry out in retaliation, I wish them success. The only thing is that in this situation we will hardly be able to accept trains and planes from Azerbaijan if the destination is written there as they have now decided," Zatulin warned.

Having threatened the neighboring country with the severance of transport communications, MP Zatulin also entered a slippery discussion path by calling Russia “a state with greater historical roots than today’s Azerbaijan.”

In his opinion, Baku is demonstrating “self-inflated ambitions and a desire to behave as inadequately as possible in order to earn the gratitude of Russia’s enemies” at the stage of its “large-scale conflict with the West.”

But Azerbaijan also has its own elected representatives who are not at a loss for a sharp word. And now Milli Majlis deputy Rasim Musabekov answers Konstantin Zatulin:

"If Zatulin has now transformed into a defender of monuments, then I remind you that he had previously illegally visited Karabakh many times, but preferred not to notice the desecrated Azerbaijani mosques, our historical heritage, the shot monuments to Natavan, Bulbul and other outstanding figures of Azerbaijani culture, erected in their homeland in Shusha. So, Zatulin, do not latch on to Aivazovsky, his memory does not need your protection," Musabeyov concluded.

True, from the words of Musabekov, who noted that in Azerbaijan the marine artist “is known and appreciated,” it is not clear why it was necessary to demolish the monument to Aivazovsky and how the monument has offended the population of Khankendi.

Meanwhile, Baku media outlets do not miss any opportunity to remind about the "persecution" of compatriots in Russia. A video about the demolition of a small market in Yekaterinburg, where Azerbaijani citizens were trading, is circulating on social networks.

It is characteristic that Yekaterinburg is called by the Soviet name Sverdlovsk...

I wonder how long the war of toponyms will continue?