Reagan Street Slated for Stara Syniava

A sad piece of news from the US — the death of Ronald Reagan- was being discussed near a well on Tsukrozavod (Sugar Refinery) Street in Stara Syniava, a district center in Khmelnytsky oblast. “Somebody suggested renaming a street in our district center to perpetuate the memory of the former US president. Some of the interlocutors shared this opinion,” local area researcher Ivan Kozelsky, who took part in the discussion, told The Day. The question was, which of the streets could be “sacrificed.” The one named after Shchors? Chapayev? Thaelmann? Karl Marx? Kalinin? The discussants’ own street was also discussed. A long time ago, a residential estate was built around the Stara Syniava sugar refinery, one of the largest in the region. The names of the streets adjacent to the factory included such words as sugar, sugar refinery, and factory. As a matter of fact, these names are no longer meaningful. The Stara Syniava factory “died” long before the US president who orchestrated the fall of the “evil empire.” “The new owners have almost finished taking the equipment out of the enterprise,” Mr. Kozelsky continued. Left jobless and without means of subsistence, former sugar refinery workers held a number of protest rallies but failed to achieve any results. “Young people have left this place in search of a job, while the older generation is thinking about the US ex-president who just passed away,” Kozelsky said, explaining the subject of the debate on Sugar Refinery Street that took place near a well. Stara Syniava Mayor Mykola Movchan told us it was up to the councillors to decide whether or not to rename the street. “A written petition from the residents of the street will be discussed at a council session,” Mr. Movchan said. Then he agreed, “There is something to rename.”