In accordance with the law, which has already subjected thousands of city, town, village and street names to 'decommunization', objects in the region, from parks and squares to individual trees, have been given a name makeover.
As expected, the changes include things like renaming a Ternopil city green area from 'Karl Marx Square' to 'Taras Shevchenko Square', in honor of the Ukrainian poet and writer.
Meanwhile, a great oak in a local nature preserve commemorating Soviet Ukrainian partisan leader Sydir Kovpak has been renamed the 'King Oak'. During the war, Kovpak had waged a brutally effective guerilla campaign not only against the Nazis, but against the fascist collaborationist Ukrainian Insurgent Army of Stephan Bandera across western Ukraine as well.
Furthermore, despite the fact that the law on decommunization is formally meant to target only communist nomenclature, local authorities decided to go the extra mile, renaming the 'Peter the Great Oak' into simply 'Giant Oak'.
