Name for a Soviet controlled Istanbul

Istanbul or Byzantium. It would be ruled through a Turkish Soviet Republic or a Greek Soviet Republic, and names invoking either the Tsar or Christianity are going to be unacceptable to Stalin.
 
Maybe name it after some Soviet functionary a la Kaliningrad? Something like Molotovgrad or Malenkovgrad?

Bosporograd would possibly happen in a similar pattern to Volgograd if the old name has Stalinist connotations and de-Stalinization happens ITTL.

For the Soviets to get the Bosporus you'll have to have a massive Soviet-wank or Communism-wank though.
 
Istanbul was never a part of the Russian/Soviet empires. If Russia somehow annexed land as far as that city, history would be so different that I wouldn't even be sure if a Soviet Union as we know it would still exist.
While true . If the Russians pushed for it during the crimean wars or during ww 1 if they had their collective shit together . Sure..

If its ww 2 you need to have turkey involved unless the soviets have invaded turkey.

There are other issues with this whole idea, if things were that bad Greece is moving in.

So what if it's a Moscow aligned communist Greece .

Or Bulgaria swoops down.. Or Serbia moves over..

If you dismantled the ottoman empire and carved out spheres the Russians still wouldn't get it, the Greeks would.

So I'm I agree l, history would be vastly different.

But best shot, a free hand during the crimean wars and no one holding them back.. In that case it's konstaintinopl.. Not tsar grad or or othee whack names . Hell even the turks didn't change the name, they just call it what they do in Turkish which is Constantinople/Istanbul.

Now the Russians felt they were the 3rd Rome and a somewhat torch barer just like every other group since around 380/1480 ad .
Turks just moved in and set a byzantine shop with Islam.
 
Maybe name it after some Soviet functionary a la Kaliningrad? Something like Molotovgrad or Malenkovgrad?

Bosporograd would possibly happen in a similar pattern to Volgograd if the old name has Stalinist connotations and de-Stalinization happens ITTL.

For the Soviets to get the Bosporus you'll have to have a massive Soviet-wank or Communism-wank though.
Minor correction--in Russian, the Bosporus is pronounced "Bos-For," so the city would either be Bosforsk or Bosforograd.
 
Konstantingrad in Ukraine became Krasnograd (Krasnohrad). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnohrad Кrasno is "red", i.e. Communist, but also an archaic/poetic form of "beautiful."

So why not have the much larger city named after Constantine become Krasnograd-on-the-Bosporous (Krasnograd na Bosforu? My Russian is not very good...)?

Or if it's acquired by Stalin, why not call it Stalinodor ("Stalin's gift" to the Soviet people)--a name Stalin's courtiers wanted for Moscow (he angrily turned them down)?

If the USSR acquires Turkey as a whole the city might stil be called Istanbul, largest city of the Turkish SSR. ("Istanbul" unlike Constantinople or Tsargrad does not honor anyone the Soviets would rather not honor--it just means "to the city." [1]) But I am assuming that either Russia or later the USSR only acquires the Straits and the nearby area--in which case the area becomes the Bosporous Oblast of the RSFSR, with the city renamed as indicated. (If the Russian Empire acquires it, it will be called Tsargrad before the Bolsheviks change its name.)

[1] "...commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν" (pronounced [is tim ˈbolin]), which means "to the city"[27] and is how Constantinople was referred to by the local Greeks." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbu
 
Last edited:
Top