Dekabristov Island

Categories / City Topography/Geographical Objects/Islands
DEKABRISTOV ISLAND (Island of Decembrists), known as Goloday Island until 1926 in the west of St. Petersburg. It is situated north of Vasilievsky Island and separated from it by the Smolenka River. It is 4.1 square kilometres together with Volny Island. It is washed by the Malaya Neva River in the north, looks on the Gulf of Finland in the west, and borders Serny Island in the east. Its former name is associated with T. Holliday, an English physician who owned a plot in the island. It was renamed in memory of the leaders of Decembrists executed in 1826, a monument opened in 1940 where they had been supposedly buried. In the late 17th century, there were small settlements on the bank of the Smolenka River and in the northeast of the island. Butcheries, leatherworks, and rope works were built in the 18th century and a prison in the mid-18th century, which was closed in 1777. The island was heavily built up with industrial enterprises from the mid-19th century. Today, there are such enterprises as Kalinin Plant, Kozha Company, Northern Weaving Manufacture, Baltiiskaya Bumaga, Vpered Works, and Rot-Front Skinnery. Novy Peterburg (New Petersburg) was a new residential district built, though not completed, in the west of the island in 1911-13. The island was a part of Vasilievskaya part from 1737 and Vasileostrovsky District from 1917. Its area was significantly extended by means of the annexation of Volny Island and deposition of soil in 1970s. A new residential district was built in the west. The arterial roads are Zheleznovodskaya Street, Uralskaya Street, Nalichnaya Street, and Korablestroiteley Street. Primorskaya metro station was opened in 1979. In the island there is Armenian Cemetery, Smolenskoe Lutheran Cemetery, and Blokadnoe Cemetery.

References: Никитенко Г. Ю., Соболь В. Д. Василеостровский район: Энцикл. улиц С.-Петербурга. СПб., 2002. С. 16-17, 95-98, 105-110, 377, 380, 382-383, 392-394, 461-465.

G. Y. Nikitenko. Holliday Thomas
Kalinin Mikhail Ivanovich
Korablestroiteley St./Saint Petersburg, city
Nalichnaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Uralskaya St./Saint Petersburg, city
Zheleznovodskaya Street/Saint Petersburg, city
Пирогов П. П. Васильевский остров. Л., 1966 1912