Dekabristov Island (), known prior to 1926 as Goloday Island (остров Голодай – possibly a corruption of a British merchant name Halliday; the original name in ) is an island in
Vasileostrovsky District of
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...
,
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
, to the north of
Vasilyevsky Island
Vasilyevsky Island (, Vasilyevsky Ostrov, V.O.) is an island in Saint Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the Bolshaya Neva River, Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva Rivers (in the delta of the Neva River) in the south and northeast ...
, separated from it by
Smolenka River.
The island, originally low-lying and frequently flooded, all the same was traditionally used as the
Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery. In the
early Soviet period, the name was changed to Decembrists' Island to commemorate five executed leaders of
Decembrist revolt
The Decembrist revolt () was a failed coup d'état led by liberal military and political dissidents against the Russian Empire. It took place in Saint Petersburg on , following the death of Emperor Alexander I.
Alexander's brother and heir ...
, who were buried in an unmarked grave on Goloday.
In 1911, a British investment company launched a development project on a 1 square-kilometer lot in western Goloday Island, hiring
and
Fyodor Lidval to design a
Neoclassical middle-classical neighborhood. A small part of this project was completed before
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
and the
Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...
. Eastern and northern sides of the island were heavily industrialized; the western half of the island was built up with a
Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev (19 December 190610 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1964 until his death in 1982 as well as the fourth chairman of the Presidium ...
-era high-rise.
Dekabristov Island is connected to Vasilievsky Island to the south with five automobile bridges, and to the tiny
Serny Island north from it. It is connected to the center of the city through
Primorskaya station of
Saint Petersburg Metro
The Saint Petersburg Metro () is a rapid transit system in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Construction began in early 1941, but was put on hold due to World War II and the subsequent Siege of Leningrad, during which the constructed stations were used a ...
.
References
{{SaintPetersburg-geo-stub
Vasileostrovsky District
Islands of Saint Petersburg
River islands of Russia
Neva River
Decembrist revolt