On 15 May 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a bill into law which began a six months period for the removal of communist monuments and the mandatory renaming of settlements with names related to Communism. On 12 November 2015, the City Council decided to rename the city to Chornomorsk (after the Black Sea coast upon which the city is found). The decision was confirmed by the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian parliament) on 4 February 2016. The city was originally named after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.