ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the onomaturgies of toponymic commodification (the spatial politics of profit-oriented place naming) on the example of a new multifunctional business and residential complex, Mayak Minska (the Lighthouse of Minsk), in the capital of Belarus. The study unpacks how the neoliberal toponymic place branding, as a globalized policy approach that steers power-holders toward the privatization of urban spatial identities, is entangled with regime-specific geopolitical motivations in Belarus. Our data covers over 200 residential high-rise or housing estate names, coined particularly since the mid-2000s. These toponyms not only seek to inflate the economic value of the urban space but also serve other functions. In Mayak Minska’s case, “high art”-related anthroponymic toponyms are status signs of urban prestige and cosmopolitanism, as well as escapist depoliticized icons (evoking distinguished artists from mainly western and southern parts of Europe) that can be interpreted as the autocratic regime’s urban endeavor to win popular consent. In this chapter, we illuminate the translocal processes of capital investment and symbolic mimicry reflected in commodified onomaturgies. Our findings also unveil how the toponymic place branding in the analyzed megaproject is propelled by an alliance between the Belarusian regime and a transnational (originally Serbian) developer, despite the status of contemporary Belarus as an internationally boycotted state.
