Moscow Sheremetyevo is to carry the name of poet Alexander Pushkin, while Domodedovo will bear that of scientist Mikhail Lomonosov, following a national scheme to rebrand the country’s airports.
The results of the ‘Great Names of Russia’ vote have been formally released by the council overseeing the scheme.
Forty-seven airports are participating and 42 have so far had names approved.
Several airport which already bear the names of national figures – such as the new Saratov airport, named for Yuri Gagarin – were excluded from the contest.
But the organising council points out that there are “few such [named] airports” and most of those already named are associated with pilots and cosmonauts, rather than other notable individuals.
Moscow Vnukovo and St Petersburg Pulkovo are among the airports yet to have their preferred names – respectively Sergei Korolev and Peter I the Great – confirmed.
Among the other significant airports featured in the scheme are Sochi (cosmonaut Vitaly Sevastyanov), Ekaterinburg (industrialist Akinfiy Demidov), Novosibirsk (Soviet air tactician Alexander Pokryshkin), Ufa (writer Mustai Karim), and Krasnodar (Catherine II the Great).
Crimea’s Simferopol airport, on territory controversially annexed by Russia in 2014, has been assigned the name of painter Ivan Aivazovsky.
Moscow Sheremetyevo’s operator states that it “gladly accepts” the result of the national renaming scheme, adding that it will display the new name on special plates on the terminal buildings.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
