Photo survey of the district center of Chervjen’ (Ihumjen) in eastern Mjensk Region 2015.
The city’s historic name was Ihumjen (Ігумен) until renamed in shopworn Bolshevik fashion by the occupying Soviet regime in 1923: Chervjen’ in Belarusian means June, not “redness” as the Soviets assumed from the etymological link between Chervjen’ and chyrvonny (red).
Chervjen’ (Ihumjen) was under Soviet occupation from 1919-1991 (under German occupation 1941-1944) and has been subject to the West-Russian dictates of the current neo-Muraujeu-style gubernator regime since 1994. Nevertheless, the city has maintained (or had maintained at least until 2015) a fine Belarusian patrimony despite this deadening weight.
Фотавандроўка па г. Чэрвень (Ігумен) 2015 г.
Нягледзячы на шэры ўпліў сямі дзесяцігодзьдзяў савецкай акупацыі ды амаль 30-і гадоў бягучай неамураўёва-губернатарскай улады, Чэрвень (Ігумен) умеў па сёньняшні дзён — ці прынамсі па 2015 г. — захоўваць выдатную частку сваёй беларускай спадчыны.
Although the slogan (“My home town”) on this archetypal Soviet-style five-story apartment block is a commonplace, it was written in Belarusian rather than in the much more bureaucratically-acceptable Russian.
Мой родны горад.
