Kolomna, Saint Petersburg

Kolomna - a historical district of St. Petersburg in the Admiralteysky district, before the revolution - the 4th Admiralteyskaya (Kolomenskaya) part. It is divided into Bolshaya/ Large (within the borders of Pokrovsky Island) and Malaya/ Small Kolomna. One of the unique districts of the historical center of St. Petersburg, which has preserved most of the ordinary buildings of the 19th century.

 

How to get here

There is no metro in Kolomna. To inspect the southern part of the district (the embankment of the Obvodny Canal, Gutuevsky Island), the  1 (Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya) Baltic line and  1 (Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya) Narvskaya line are suitable. The northern and more central (Kolomensky Island proper) can be reached on foot or by land transport from station  1 (Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya) line  2 (Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya) line Technological Institute or interchange stations  2 (Moskovsko-Petrogradskaya) line Sennaya Square /  5 (Frunzensko -Primorskaya) Sadovaya line /  4 (Pravoberezhnaya) Spasskaya line.

 

Sights

1 Isidore Church, Rimsky-Korsakov Ave. 24.
2 Estonian Lutheran Church (Church of St. John, Jaanikirik), Dekabristov str. 54.
3  Church of St. Stanislaus, Union of Printers st. 22. Catholic church.
4 Choral synagogue, Lermontovsky pr. 2.
5 Lesgaft University of Physical Education (Palace of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich), Dekabristov st. 35E.
6 House of Music (Palace of Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich), Moiki nab. 122.
7  Semimost (crossing of the Griboyedov and Kryukov canals). Orienteering exercise - if you stand at a certain point, you can see around the seven bridges over the canals.
8 Church of St. Andrew of Crete, Rizhsky prospect 9. The church was built in 1892. in memory of the rescue of the royal family during a railway accident in Borki near Kharkov in 1888. Andrew of Crete is a little-known Greek saint, on the day of whose memory a catastrophe occurred. The church is located not in a separate building, but on the third floor of one of the factory buildings, where paper money was issued in tsarist times. From the street, the entrance to the stairs to the church stands out with a small bell tower. The interior of the church is painted with ornaments in the Russian style, restored in the 21st century after the use of the premises under the Soviet regime as a hostel, club, etc. Now St. Andrew's Church is the courtyard of the Konstantin-Eleninsky Monastery (located in the north of the Leningrad region). The church keeps an unusually large number of relics and other Christian relics in rich caskets and arks.

Things to do
1 Blok Museum-apartment, Dekabristov st. 57. Thu–Tue 11:00–18:00. 200₽, preferential 150₽.
2 Museum of Christian Culture, Lodygina per. 5 ( 1 (Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya) Baltic line). Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00. 400₽, preferential 200₽. Excellent private museum of religious painting. The main focus is on Russian icons, but there is also European painting. The exhibits are beautifully illuminated, which is not always the case in state museums. Good sightseeing tours.

 

Borders

The historical area is limited within the Fontanka, Kryukov Canal, Moika and Pryazhka rivers. It consists of two islands - Kolomensky and Pokrovsky. In the west, Admiralty shipyards adjoin historical Kolomna. Often confused, referring to Kolomna the island of New Holland and even Galernaya Street with the houses of the richest and most noble families of Russia and members of the Romanov Imperial family, which are actually included in the historic Admiralteysky district.

 

Origin of name

The word "kolomna" in ancient Rus' was widespread: on old maps, many villages bear this name. Now the name of the city of Kolomna is widely known. In the middle of the 18th century, when the name "Kolomna" appeared in St. Petersburg, this word was already outdated and was not used to designate new settlements.

Some historians of St. Petersburg tried to explain the origin of this name by inaccurate pronunciation of foreign words, pointing out that in the 1730s, the architect D. Trezzini, when he made straight clearings through the swampy forest, called them “columns” (now these clearings are the streets of the Decembrists, the Union of Printers and etc.). These "columns" allegedly developed into the name of the area - Kolomna.

According to another version, this name is associated with the word "colony" (many foreigners lived in this area).

A more plausible theory was published in 1834 in the Northern Bee newspaper. The name "Kolomna", she wrote, was brought by artisans from the village of Kolomenskoye, who were resettled in St. Petersburg in the 30s of the 18th century.

Such cases of "journey" of names are not uncommon in general. So, immigrants from the city of Kolomna founded Kolomenskaya Street and seventeen Kolomna lanes in Moscow, renamed Rabochaya Street and Rabochiye Lane.

The toponymy of the city preserved the name of the district in the name of the Kolomensky bridge.

 

History

The development of the area began after the laying in 1711 by Peter I of the summer palace for his wife Ekaterina - Ekateringof - and the laying of the first road to it, which later turned into Ekateringofsky Prospekt (now Rimsky-Korsakov Prospekt). The mass settlement of Kolomna began after two fires in the Sea Sloboda (the area of Bolshaya and Malaya Morskaya streets) in 1736 and 1737, which was reflected in the names of the streets of the area into which the fire victims flowed: spinners (Spinning, now Labutina), pilots (Lotsmanskaya), gunners ( Kanonerskaya).

The layout of the district was carried out in 1737-1740 by P. M. Yeropkin, who was executed in 1740. For Kolomna, he also developed "exemplary" projects of residential areas, consisting of land plots with houses, gardens and orchards. The main thoroughfare of Bolshaya Kolomna was Sadovaya Street, which passed along the old road to the Kalinkina village, along the route of which the architect provided for three squares: Sennaya, Nikolskaya and Pokrovskaya. On each, a cathedral was subsequently erected and markets arose.

The initial building was wooden, but already in 1761, Elizaveta Petrovna signed a decree to the Senate with an order to build only stone buildings between the Moika and the Fontanka, and to give a worthy example, even before this decree, she instructed S. I. Chevakinsky to build a five-domed cathedral on the site of the Marine Regiment Yard with a bell tower in honor of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of sailors and fishermen.

The main population was initially made up of admiralty servants and workers, by the beginning of the 19th century - petty officials, artisans, and provincial nobles. The proximity of the Bolshoi, and then the Mariinsky Theater and the Conservatory contributed to the settlement of the area by musicians and actors, and the synagogue built at the end of the 19th century attracted most of the Jewish population of St. Petersburg here.

 

Hotels

Azimuth (former hotel Sovetskaya), Lermontovsky pr. 43/1.