MPs from Ukraine's autonomous republic of Crimea renamed their legislature on Wednesday, replacing its Ukrainian name with a Russian equivalent from the Soviet era.
Seventy-two MPs of 90 the present in the 100-seat regional parliament voted to rename the Supreme Rada "The Supreme Soviet."
"The new name is far more in harmony both with the rules of Russian and with the ethnic and cultural composition of the Crimea's population," said Oleh Slyusarenko, of the Russian Bloc faction, the driving force behind the move.
Polls suggest about 80% of Crimeans say Russian is their mother tongue.
The change has to be approved by the national parliament, Ukraine's Supreme Rada, before it takes effect.
Ironically, earlier in the day, Crimean Tatar language experts approved a move to stop using the Cyrillic alphabet and return to the Latin alphabet, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reported.
It said the issue was discussed by dozens of linguists and other language experts at a special seminar on Sunday. The experts presented research outlining the grammar of the Crimean Tatar language using the Latin alphabet and agreed on orthographic rules for it to be written using Latin letters.
SIMFEROPOL, February 17 (RIA Novosti)
