SAINTS, MYSTICS AND VILLAINS OF PETERSBURG

People from small town Kolomna, situated near Moscow, were the first inhabitants and builders of this area of Petersburg. They also named the own village as Kolomna.

The foreigners lodging in the first years of building of Petersburg, as a rule lived separately, by a national sign, and formed large villages, or colonies.

One of them was in area of the Goat bog. Gradually a foreign word "colony" has turned to Russian Kolomna.

The first architect of Petersburg Domeniko Trezini, cutting a glade through marshy wood for the future streets, named their columns, but, being the foreigner and badly saying Russian word, he transformed columns in "kolomnas".

Hardly it is necessary to consider each of these legends separately. Only in aggregate they give enough exact representation on how the former Goat bog with woods adjoining it between Fontanka, the Sink, the Buckle and Krjukovym the channel became Kolomna.

Its northern part grouped round today's street of Decembrists, was called as Small Kolomna, unlike the Big one, the most populous, round Garden street.

Salesmen of the Admiralty department which have based near to New Admiralty became the first inhabitants of Small Kolomna.

The Ekateringofsky road became the third street punched through waste grounds of provincial Kolomna from the centre of Petersburg in Ekateringofsky park. In 1824 it has received the prospectus status, and since 1939 bears a name of Rimsky-Korsakova (a famous compouser).

In 1812 on the rectangular area in the centre of Kolomna architect Starov erects Pokrovsky church which together with Tolkuchy market (situated around it) for a long time becomes not only geographical, but also the spiritual centre of Kolomna.

Source: Three centuries of St.Petersburg: Encyclopaedia