The road that will become ‘Boris Nemtsov Place’

WHEN the Town Hall came up with a plan to show solidarity with Russian opponents to Vladimir Putin by changing the name of a road in Highgate, council leaders hoped they would have the backing of everybody living nearby.

But this week a petition emerged in opposition to using the name “Boris Nemtsov Place” for a roundabout at the bottom end of Swain’s Lane – with some opponents believing the idea would prove dangerous.

Mr Nemtsov was the leading opposition politician to Putin when he was assassinated in Moscow in 2015.

He had stood on a podium in the Russian capital on the day he died and called for the hostility towards Ukraine to end. Hours later the activist was shot eight times. His murder has made him a martyr for the country’s pro-democracy cause.

The idea to name a road after him here, put forward by the Town Hall, is part of an international campaign to create Nemstov-titled places near Russian embassies.

With the Russian Trade Delegation based in Highgate West Hill, the Town Hall say it is a suitable place for the campaigner to be memorialised.

The plans have been generally supported by Swain’s Lane businesses, while others say Highgate’s history of political thought and dissent makes it the right place to remember a defender of democracy. But objections seen by the New Journal claim such a plan could bring conflict to Highgate’s quiet streets.

An online petition by the Highgate Village Green Preservation Society cites how the same project in Prague saw the city’s mayor threatened by a group carrying the killer chemical Ricin, a poison used previously by the Russian secret service against opponents.

Organiser Helen Rapley said: “Despite the gravity of this proposal Camden Council have supported it, drawing all Highgate residents into a potential firing line. It is provocative and shows disregard for the area and for the Swain’s Lane identity.

“There is strong feeling about this, associated with a sense of fear. This proposal is not just naming a street, it is a political act making an antagonistic anti-Putin statement.”

John Slater, acting chairman of the Dartmouth Park Conservation Area Committee, said: “People are incensed. The Town Hall needs to back down.”

Boris Nemtsov was murdered in Moscow in 2015 [Dhārmikatva]

He claimed the council has pushed forward without thinking about reactions, adding: “How will a sign fit the roundabout? Will people be encouraged to go to the centre and read what it says?”

He added that the aim should be to reduce street clutter, not create more, adding: “Our conservation area is becoming more congested. This would need a new road sign and then another explaining what it is.”

Others have proposed the roundabout should instead be named after the Highgate-based philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts. If the plans go ahead, the roundabout will join streets in Washington DC, Vilnius, Kyiv, Bratislava, Prague and Greater Toronto in being renamed after Mr Nemtsov – and be the first in the UK to do so.

Voices of support come from close friends of Mr Nemtsov. Peter Kaznacheev and Vera Kichanova worked with him before finding safety in Camden Town.

Former Moscow councillor Ms Kichanova said: “The very last time I saw him, two weeks before his death, was in an airport in Kyiv — I moved to Ukraine after the revolution, and he was spending a lot of time in Kyiv in the last year of his life, being the voice of the anti-war Russians.

“As a family living in Camden, we want to express our support for a very welcome initiative.”

Mr Kaznacheev worked with Mr Nemtsov in the 1990s, organising pre-democracy protests. He said: “Many cities around the world have named streets and squares after Nemtsov. It may sound unbelievable now, but we remember him leading tens of thousands of protesters with Ukrainian flags in Moscow against the military invasion.

“It is a timely initiative – to commemorate a person who sacrificed his life trying to prevent the brutality of an imperial war.”

Town Hall leader Labour councillor Georgia Gould said she had been approached earlier this year by Russian democracy campaigner Vladimir Kara-Murza with the idea.

Mr Kara-Murza has survived two attempts on his life and, after returning to Russia, has been charged with treason.

The plans to unveil the newly named roundabout have been earmarked for next week, as Evgenia Kara-Murza – the organiser’s wife – is in London to collect an award on behalf of her husband.

Camden Council leader Georgia Gould

Cllr Gould said: “This is supported by a cross-party campaign nationally and it sits within our traditions in Camden of taking a stand against oppression. “We renamed a street after Nelson Mandela in 1983.

“I have been contacted by Russian dissidents living in Camden who have said how much this idea means and I hope it will support all who show enormous courage in the face of oppression.”

added: “We made provisional arrangements to celebrate the naming on the day she is here.  It will only go ahead once the consultation has ended and been considered. “There is an opportunity to move this around if there are other ideas about where this would be best placed.”