Salihorsk: Belarusian Language Society continues struggling for observance of law "On Geographic Names"

Salihorsk city organization of the "Belarusian Language Society" has filed a second appeal to the State Property Committee demanding to bring the names of signs on the buildings of Salihorsk in line with the Law "On the names of geographical objects."

At the end of April, members of the organization privately sent a similar appeal to the above-mentioned government agency. However, they still haven't received any response.

“The matter is that our members applied to the Committee through the so-called electronic application service at the website of this government agency. They haven't received any response, and the electronic system doesn't provide the opportunity to prove the fact of appeals,” says
the head of the Salihorsk BLS Mikalai Sharavar. “That's why we have sent an official letter on behalf of the city organization by regular mail with a custom notification. If we still receive no answer, we will apply to the prosecutor's office.”

Bear in mind that the according to the legislation in force, names are assigned to geographic objects in the Belarusian language, and their transfer to the Russian language is only possible through transliteration. The existence of bilingual names of the streets (e.g., Kastrychnitskaya and “Oktyabrskaya”, Chyhunachnaya and “Zheleznodorozhnaya”) is illegal and hinders their use as physical address identifiers.