Dairy farm renames cowshed from 'Moscow' to 'Kyiv'
A dairy farm has renamed one of its barns after the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, ETV news show 'Aktuaalne kaamera' (AK) reported Thursday. The farm employs several Ukrainian people, while the barn in question had previously been named 'Moskva' (i.e. Moscow).
The Halinga dairy farm in Pärnu County has around 1,800 head of milk cows, and around the same number of calves and heifers, AK reported.
The farm's management felt that naming the larger cowsheds after major world cities added to the engagement while at work – as if to say "I'm in this or that city right now," - with other buildings named after Pariis (Paris), Peking (Beijing) etc.
However, given the current situation, it was felt to be good for morale to rename the "Moscow" barn with the "Kyiv" (Estonian: Kiiev) signage instead.
Farm manager Raul Peetson told AK that: "Any war represents a struggle with symbolism also. Nowadays, where we have people from Ukraine in our team, having to go to work every day in a situation where the capital of the aggressor country is in your face, well this had to change."
Peetson added that Ukraine must be supported in each and any way possible, with the renaming being just one example.
As to the Beijing cowshed, this would remain named as it is, Peetson added, though there were conflicting signals from the Chinese capital on Russia's war on Ukraine, so far.
Peetson said that Ukraine must be supported wherever possible, and that is one of them. But there are also conflicting signals from China over the war that Russia has unleashed, signals which reach into trade and including dairy exports, a burgeoning sector in respect of China.
This also applied to some EU countries too, he added.
"We're not watching the political situation so much – we're watching Beijing to see if the shipments are being forwarded on to Russia. We're also watching Paris and Berlin. If Macron and Scholz are going to sit there for an extended period of time on a call with Putin, they deserve to be called out for that, and the signs [for the respective capitals] will then be exchanged [on the cowsheds]," Peetson went on.
While many other grassroots level expressions of support for Ukraine have been made by private individuals and companies in Estonia and elsewhere, Latvia and Lithuania have gone to the lengths of renaming the streets on which the Russian embassies in those two countries are situated.
Editor's note: ERR News uses Ukrainian place-name spelling conventions.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
