A special commission of the Chief Geodetic Survey of Poland has decided to eliminate the names "Kaliningrad" and "Kaliningrad Oblast" from use in Polish.
It is proposed to use the Polish name Królewiec to refer to this russian city, and Krulewiecka to refer to the region.
The meeting of the Commission responsible for standardizing geographical names outside Poland took place on May 9.
The decision came into force on the same day.
"The fact of naming a large city near the Polish border after Kalinin, a criminal responsible, among other things, for the decision to massacre Poles (Katyn massacre), has an emotional and negative character in Poland," the commission said in a statement.
The members of the commission made it clear that they were prompted to make this decision by the events in Ukraine – russian aggression and Moscow's imposition of the so-called "russian world."
The kremlin called Poland's decision madness.
"It's not even russophobia anymore, it's some kind of processes on the verge of insanity that are taking place in Poland," said putin's press secretary dmitry peskov.
According to him, throughout its history, Poland "sometimes slips into madness in its hatred of russians, and this does not bring anything good for Poland and the Poles."
Background. As a reminder, the Polish government has authorized the sinking of enemy ships that would threaten the gas pipeline from Norway.