WASHINGTON (WASHINGTON POST) - It's not exactly the Cold War. But things are heating up between the United States and Russia over something very silly: the name of the streets that house each other's embassies.
Back in January, District of Columbia city officials voted unanimously to rename the street on which the Russian embassy sits. On Jan 10, the street was redubbed Boris Nemtsov, after a slain Russian democracy activist. Mr Nemtsov was a vocal critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In February 2015, he was shot dead while walking home from a Moscow restaurant. Five Chechen men were convicted of the killing in 2017, but Mr Nemtsov's family believes his real killer remains at large, and that he was assassinated for his political work.
At the time, Russian politicians called Washington's name change a "dirty trick". Now, one wants to strike back. Hard.
A lawmaker with Russia's nationalist LDPR party has suggested renaming the street where the US houses its Moscow embassy "North American Dead End".
The full address would read: North American Dead End, 1. The embassy is housed on Bolshoy Devyatinsky Lane, 8.
Politician Mikhail Degtyaryov pitched the plan to Moscow's city hall recently, and the government says it will consider the option.
It's just the recent parry in a fight waged around the world.
Coincidentally, Ankara city officials on Monday (Feb 12) began debating whether to rename the street on which the US embassy stands to "Olive Branch".
It may sound nice, but it is actually something of a troll - Olive Branch is the name of an ongoing Turkish military operation in Syria against the Syrian Kurdish militia.
That effort was in response to a US plan (later scrapped) to create a border security unit on the Turkey-Syria border made up mostly of Kurdish fighters.
Recently, Turkey renamed the street of the United Arab Emirates embassy after Ottoman commander Fahreddin Pasha, a defender of Medina during World War I.
Medina, an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia that was then a part of the Ottoman empire, was under a long siege during the war.
