Russian Culture Centre: Lenins, Stalins, Pushkins steal the show

Thiruvananthapuram: Between Lenin and Stalin, the former stood a chance of winning a popularity conquest, if it were held on Thursday at the Russian Culture Centre. For, there were 6 Lenins, as opposed to 4 Stalins at the ‘get together of Keralites with Russian names’ organized by the Russian Consulate and Russian Culture Centre. Adding a dhoti-clad Khrushchev to that number, there were eleven people named after Russian politicians. Most of them were born to parents active in the Communist party.  Now, compare that to two Pushkins and a Tolstoy who were present.

There was a little Nilovna, whose mother named her after the protagonist in Gorky’s ‘Mother’. Clearly politics had won hands down, over literature. The turnout – 30 – was less than what the organizers expected. Among the absentees were Gagarin, Tereshkova and Sputnik. Vijayakrishnan Nair, former administrative officer at the centre, remarked that more people would have come if the venue was Moscow junction. No, that’s not the Russian city but a village near Changanassery, quite close for people in Alappuzha. “Alappuzha has the most number of people with Russian names, since it has been a communist stronghold,” he says.

When the previous ‘Russian name get together’ was held here in 2008, more than 60 had turned up. But even as 6 Lenins, 4 Stalins and 2 Pushkins claimed that they had a unique name, there was just one Ila Krasny. She had arrived with her parents after the meeting got over. At three, she was not old enough to tell anyone that her name, a combination of Sanskrit ‘ila’ and Russian ‘krasny’, meant red earth.