New names for 47 Russian airports chosen by Russians

In a nationwide online poll Russians have chosen to rename 47 airports as part of the Great Names of Russia project.

• Moscow’s gateway international airport Sheremetyevo, will be renamed after the beloved 19th-century poet Aleksandr Pushkin.
• Moscow’s second main airport, Domodedovo, will be named after the 18th-century scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.
• The leading choice for Vnukovo, Moscow’s third airport, was the father of the Soviet space program, Sergei Korolyov. However, poll organizers said a final decision had not been made yet.

Other airports getting new names are Voronezh (Peter the Great); Krasnodar (Catherine the Great); Magadan (Soviet bard poet Vladimir Vysotsky); Mineralnye Vody (19th-century writer Mikhail Lermontov); and Petropavlovsk-Kamachatsky (Danish explorer Vitus Bering).