Steve: What one square says about Russia’s relations with West

Moscow’s Europe Sq. is not any extra.

Town’s Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, has signed an order renaming this place Eurasia Sq..

It is somewhat change that claims rather a lot concerning the path through which Russia is shifting: away from the West.

It’s not the prettiest sq. within the Russian capital. It is definitely no match for Purple Sq., with the breathtaking onion domes of St Basil’s Cathedral and the Kremlin.

Eurasia Sq. is constructed beside the bustling “Kyiv Railway Station” and a lodge,the place the BBC’s Moscow Workplace was as soon as situated. There’s a fountain and an uncommon composition created by a Belgian sculptor entitled “The Abduction of Europe”.

I keep in mind when this sq. was constructed simply over 20 years in the past. It was constructed as a logo of unity on the continent of Europe. There have been as soon as dozens of flags of various European nations flying right here.

They have been eliminated final 12 months, and now the title’s gone too.

Goodbye Europe; hiya Eurasia.

However what precisely is Eurasia?

Completely different nations have completely different ideas of Eurasia. President Vladimir Putin formally phrases Russia a Eurasian energy. He makes use of the phrase to imply Russia is geographically in Europe and Asia however civilisationally distinct from each.

Europe Sq.’s commemorative plaque nonetheless stands. It reads:

“As a token of stronger friendship and unity between the European nations, the federal government of Moscow has determined to create the ensemble of the Sq. of Europe within the Russian capital.”

The fact is that Russia’s battle in Ukraine and Western sanctions have put monumental pressure on relations between Moscow and Europe. The Russian authorities discuss continually now of the necessity to tilt east and look in the direction of China, North Korea, Asia as an entire.

Europe isn’t simply out of style – it’s portrayed by the Russian authorities because the enemy.

It’s not the primary time that the Moscow authorities have performed politics with road names after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In June 2022 the road the place the US embassy is situated was renamed “Donetsk Individuals’s Republic Sq.,” a reference to the self-proclaimed breakaway area of Ukraine, which Russia later claimed to have annexed.

In comparable style, the next month the world across the British embassy turned “Luhansk Individuals’s Republic Sq..”

Again on (former) Europe Sq., what do passers-by make of the change to Eurasia?

“It’s the correct resolution,” Olga tells me. “We’re not pals with Europe proper now. I don’t wish to be in Europe.”

“Eurasia is sweet,” says Anna. “Russia borders Europe and Asia. I used to be born in Kazakhstan, so that is high quality with me.”

“Europe has completely different requirements now,” Pasha tells me. “They assume another way. We’re steadily splitting away.”

However Yevgeniya is upset. She sees the title change as “an indication of battle between completely different nations.

“It’s so unhappy,” she provides.

However on the finish of the day, does a reputation actually matter?

Following the 1917 Russian Revolution so many streets and squares in Russia have been renamed to characteristic the phrase “communism”. Did it assist the Soviet Union construct communism? Not within the slightest.

The choice to ditch the phrase Europe from a sq. doesn’t imply that Russia received’t at some point, as soon as once more, look West.