The government has supported request of local councils of Sughd and Khatlon provinces to rename a number of settlements.
The government has sent the legislatures’ request for consideration to Tajikistan’s upper house (Majlisi Milli) of parliament.
Thus, they propose to rename the settlement of Proletarsk in the Jabborrasoulov district (Sughd province) Mehrobod, the village of Qarachiqum, subordinate to the northern city of Konibodom, Jahonzeb.
They also propose to rename the jamoat of Aral in the Jomi district (Khatlon province) after the late ex-Vice-Premier Qadiriddin Ghiyosov and the jamoat of Sayod in Khatlon’s Shahritous district after the Hero of Socialist Labor Talbak Sadriddinov, an official source at the Majlisi Milli told Asia-Plus in an interview.
Having purged Tajikistan of most Russian and Soviet labels, the authorities have begun targeting places with names of Turkic origin.
Some had their former Persian names restored, some were named after historic Tajik figures, and others were given new Tajik names.
The city of Qairoqqum, an Uzbek name, for example, was renamed Guliston, or City of Flowers. An artificial lake by the same name was simply called the Tajik Sea.
The district of Ghonchi, a name with Turkic roots, was named after Devashtich, a Sogdian ruler of the modern-day Tajik city of Panjakent in pre-Islamic Central Asia.
Jirgatol district in the Rasht Valley had its old, Turkic-rooted name, Lakhsh, restored. Jillikul district in Khatlon province had its Kyrgyz name replaced with Dousti, which means friendship in Tajik.
It's not just Turkic place-names that are being targeted.
The city of Chkalovsk was renamed “Buston,” meaning “Blooming Garden.”
The authorities also changed the district of Tavildara’s Arabic-sounding name to its historical name, Sangvor.
