Back in the (old) European Square, what do passers-by think about the changes to Eurasia?
“It was the right decision,” Olga tells me. “We are not friends with Europe now. I don’t want to be in Europe.”
“I like Eurasia,” Anna said. “Russia borders Europe and Asia. I was born in Kazakhstan, so it’s okay for me.”
“Europe has different standards now,” Pasha tells me. “They think differently. We are gradually becoming divided.”
But Yevgenia is disappointed. She sees the name change as “a sign of conflict between different nations.”
“It's really sad,” she added.
But in the end, does a name really matter?
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, many streets and squares in Russia were renamed with the word “Communism.” Did the Soviet Union help build communism? Not at all.
The decision to remove the word Europe from the square does not mean that Russia will never look to the West again.
