It was only a minor tweak in the spelling but a historic change when a Ukrainian village on Wednesday renamed a street, which  honored Soviet founder Lenin, after The Beatles' John Lennon.

Large swathes of Ukraine have been erasing remnants of their totalitarian past since the February 2014 ouster of the ex-Soviet republic's Russian-backed president.

An April 2015 law banning public displays of communist symbols has outraged Russia as Ukraine, with no wish to go back to the USSR, rushes to rename cities and streets.

Perhaps no name change is more symbolic than the one made in Kalyny - a western Ukrainian village of about 5,000 people that rests just 19 kilometers from the European Union's eastern border.

Regional Governor Gennadiy Moskal said he had made the decision to change Lenin Street to Lennon Street, in honor of the Beatles co-founder and peacenik who was shot dead outside his New York City apartment building, The Dakota, in 1980.

Moskal said he had also personally ordered another street to be named after former Czechoslovakia's late president Tomas Masaryk.

Moskal's region was part of Czechoslovakia during Masaryk's rule.

The governor also made other name changes and said more were on their way.