Outrage As Bali’s Canggu Listed As ‘New Moscow’ On GoogleMaps

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Bali lovers have had mixed responses to a new listing on Google Maps.

The booming tourism resort of Canggu has been given a new listing as “New Moscow” on the app, sparking outrage from locals and tourists alike. 

Although the new listing is unofficial and has not replaced or removed any of the official listings or area demarkations on the app, the listing of ‘New Moscow’ or in Russia’s Cyrillic alphabet ‘New Mokba’ has got the internet in a fluster with netizens citing colonialism and insensitive jokes as the reasons for their outrage. 

The response from the online community has been so intense that top officials have issued statements on the matter.

The Head of Public Relations of the Bali Police, Commissioner Pol Jansen Avitus Panjaitan, has come out to say that the police are going to investigate whether there are any legal ramifications for the listing. 

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Commissioner Pol Panjaitan told reporters,  “There has been no change in what applies in Indonesia. The map is still called Canggu.” He confirmed that police are approaching the situation as an ill-judged prank. He said, “We don’t know yet [why this happened]. We will coordinate; who did it, or was it just for fun.”

Speaking separately, the head of the Bali Provincial Tourism Office, Tjok Bagus Pemayun, said that he was not concerned about the change on GoogleMaps. He compared the tag to place names like ‘Chinatown’, ‘Little India,’ and ‘Paris Van Java.’ 

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Pemayun told reporters, “If in Bali there is New Moscow [used] as a term, it doesn’t matter as long as the residents in that place still obey all the rules and regulations that apply in Indonesia, and don’t cause problems with the local communities around them.”

However innocuous it may first seem for Canggu to have a new GoogleMaps listing as “New Moscow,” the reason for outrage by local communities is rooted in genuine concerns.

Since the start of the Russian-Ukraine war, the number of Russian citizens visiting and staying long-term in Bali, specifically in the Canggu area, has risen dramatically.

The number of Russian-backed property development projects in Canggu and across the province has skyrocketed, too.

With more and more community and agricultural land being sold off to Russian investors (and plenty of other investors, too), more tensions between locals and foreigners in Canggu have arisen over the last year or so. 

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Many local people feel that a new wave of colonization has hit Bali with Russian investment leading the way, since the pandemic.

Many feel that the New Moscow listing is a representation of a much larger issue at play which is seeing the needs and wants of Russian (and other foreign) investment put before the needs and wants of local people, local communities and Bali’s cultural heritage. 

It is unlikely that the police will find any legal violations with the new listing, despite Indonesia’s strict online censorship rules.

Despite much animosity towards Russian and Ukrainian visitors and investors in Bali, it remains the case that the most frequent international arrivals to the island hail from Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and China.

That said, most Russian visitors to Bali are residing on the island on long-stay socio-cultural visas or pre-investment visas.

Minister of Tourism and Creative Economies Sandiaga Uno recently confirmed that before the war broke out, most Russian and Ukrainian citizens were staying on the island for just 1-2 weeks; since January 2023, data shows that stays are now over 90 days.

Last year with incidences of badly behaved tourists and foreigners on the island rising Bali created the Tourism Task Force who were given the mission to crack down on foreigners breaking the conditions of their visas by working, conducting business activities or even engaging in illegal activities such as drug use.