The old village of Kolomyagi (formerly Kolomyaki, Finnish Kolomäki) is a historic district in the north of Saint Petersburg. It was once one of the most picturesque suburbs of Petersburg, a patriarchal "noble nest," a center of Russian culture preserving the living memory of Pushkin's times, attracting poets and artists, celebrated in poetry. It is no coincidence that Alexander Blok, who loved to take walks in these places, wrote in his diary in August 1914: "What quiet, lovely autumn Kolomyagi."

Defining the boundaries of Kolomyagi is not so simple. The easiest way to determine them is on 19th-century maps, when the village was surrounded by undeveloped areas—meadows and arable land. By the end of the 19th century, when Kolomyagi entered the orbit of "dacha Petersburg," construction began on the vacant lands near Kolomyagi. The territory beyond the northern outskirts of Kolomyagi was called the Kolomyazhskoye Field in the first half of the 19th century. It was then, at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries, that Kolomyagi and Ozerki effectively came into contact, which later blurred the clear boundary between them.

When in the early 1970s the neighboring territory of the former Komendantsky airfield turned into a giant construction site, Parashyutnaya Street became the boundary between the city and the village, receiving its name on December 4, 1974. Nevertheless, until the late 1980s, Kolomyagi more or less retained its long-standing historical boundaries: it bordered Udelny Park to the southeast and Martynovka, or Martyno-Alekseevsky settlement, to the north.

Today, very often the entire territory west of the Finland Railway (which includes part of Ozerki and Martynovka) is called Kolomyagi. If one tries today to outline the boundaries of historic Kolomyagi, surrounded by the city, the contours would look approximately as follows: to the east—Afonskaya Street, Udelny Park, Akkuratova Street; to the south—Parashyutnaya Street, which separates Kolomyagi and the new-build district of the former Komendantsky airfield; to the west—Repishcheva Street and a bit beyond it, up to the boundary with the industrial zone; to the north—Verbna Street. The locals themselves conventionally divide Kolomyagi into "old" and "new": the "old Kolomyagi" represent the settlement within its historical boundaries outlined above, while the "new Kolomyagi" are the new buildings around and north of Verbna Street.

There are many legends, versions, and interpretations regarding the very name Kolomyagi. This unusual name dates back to pre-Petrine times when there was a Finnish settlement here on hilly terrain. Some believe it is related to the feature of the hill on which the settlement stood ("kolo" in Finnish means hollow, cave; "myaki" means hill, mound), others see the root in the verb "koloa"—to debark, to strip bark—thus considering that tree processing took place here. Another version suggests that the village's name has Finnish origins and means "fish hill" (in Finnish "kala" means fish, and "myaki" means hill, mound). The researcher P.N. Lyadov explained the name "fish hill" by the fact that in ancient times the sea supposedly came so close to this area that the population engaged in fishing.

Finally, there is yet another interpretation of the name Kolomyagi. Some researchers derive it from the Finnish "kello"—bell (since in earlier times Kolomyagi was often also called "Kellomyaki"), associating it not with the hill's feature but with a "bell on the hill"—a watchtower with a signal bell standing on the elevation. Watch bells were an essential attribute of the fortresses built by the Swedes in the Prinevsky lands. One of these fortresses was located somewhere in the Kolomyagi area. On pre-revolutionary plans of Petersburg near Kolomyagi, a dotted pentagon was marked, next to which it said: "Remains of a 17th-century Swedish fortification."

In Peter's times, the lands around the new capital, devastated by war, were granted to Peter I's close associates. In 1719, the plot bounded by the Bolshaya Nevka River (formerly called Malaya Neva), the Gulf of Finland, and the Kamenka and Cherna Rivers was given for temporary use, and in 1726—perpetual ownership—to General Admiral Osterman. The settlement of Kellomyaki was part of this plot. After Elizabeth Petrovna ascended the throne, Osterman fell into disgrace. He was sentenced to death, later commuted to exile to the Urals—in Berezov. In 1746, Osterman's land was granted to Chancellor Count Bestuzhev-Ryumin. Notably, the decree mentioned the grant not of "wasteland" but of the "seaside estate Kamenniy Nos with peasants... which Osterman owned."

According to some sources, there was once a Finnish-populated settlement on the site of the village Kolomyagi. Both Osterman and Bestuzhev-Ryumin relocated their serfs from their villages to their estate. The settlers built huts, thus founding the villages of Kolomyagi, Old, and New. Even today, Kolomyagi's old-timers reasonably associate their origins with the Volga region, and the southern half of the village is called "Galician."

As Lyadov noted, Kolomyagi became a place where those exiled from their homelands for various reasons were sent and not allowed to return. Of the thirteen surviving peasant families by the late 1920s, the largest by number, the Barabokhins, came from Kostroma Province; the Ladygins and Smorchkovs—from Yaroslavl; the Potapovs—from Tver; and the Kayaykins and Shishigins apparently originated from the Karelian region.

In short, during the times of Osterman and Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the Finnish village gradually became Russian. It is possible that it was then that the name "Kellomyaki" began to sound Russian—"Kolomyagi," although the old name continued to be used for two centuries, especially among the local Finns.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin built the Annunciation Church between the New and Old Villages, which has survived to this day (thus the "seaside estate Kamenniy Nos" received another name—the village of Blagoveshchenskoye).

After Bestuzhev-Ryumin's death, who had no heirs, his estate passed through his wife’s line to the Volkonsky family. On January 31, 1789, "the village of Blagoveshchenskoye, also Kamenniy Nos, with the villages of New, Old, and Kolomyagi" was purchased by retired Lieutenant Colonel Sergey Savin Yakovlev, son of the famous Petersburg merchant-millionaire Savva Yakovlev-Sobakin, from the deed of the maiden Princess Anna Alekseevna Volkonskaya.

Sergey Savvich Yakovlev died in 1818 with the rank of Actual State Councillor. He left seven daughters as heirs. Initially, Yakovlev’s heiresses decided to keep all the property in undivided ownership, with each entitled to a 1/7 share. However, the possibility of a subsequent division of the estate was not excluded. This is exactly what happened in 1823 when the heiresses married and wished to have their own land plots. The surveyor Katanev was invited to divide the estate and the "estate place," where Yakovlev’s dilapidated manor stood at that time, into seven parts. Each part was assigned a number, and the division of land was done by drawing lots. As a result, the New and Old Villages were assigned numbers 1 through 5 (all owners were wives of military men—Sabir, Albrecht, Shishmareva 1, Shishmareva 2, and Manzei). The village of Kolomyagi was divided by lot (between numbers 6 and 7) into two halves along the Nameless Stream, flowing from the current Upper Lake in Ozerki into the Kolomyazhskoye swamp, between Elizaveta Alekseevna Nikitina (daughter of Elena Sergeevna, who died in 1817, and General Alexey Petrovich Nikitin, who effectively owned the village as guardian of his daughter) and Ekaterina Sergeevna Yakovleva, married name Avdulina. Her interests were represented by her recently widowed father—the former husband of Elena Sergeevna, General Alexey Petrovich Nikitin, hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, later (in 1847) elevated to the rank of count. In his honor, 1st Alekseevskaya Street and both Nikitin Streets were named. The 2nd Alekseevskaya Street was later named after Alexey Nikolaevich Avdulin.

The division of streets with the same names into "1st" and "2nd" (or "1st half" and "2nd half") in Kolomyagi is the last evidence of the hereditary division of the former village. In Kolomyagi, there were parallel lines of the 1st and 2nd halves: 1st (now 1st and 2nd Nikitin Streets); 2nd (now 1st and 2nd Alekseevskaya Streets). Currently, only the third lines of the 1st and 2nd halves have retained their names.

Sources:

https://proza.ru/2016/04/29/1386

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-я_Алексеевская_улица

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Коломяги

https://www.wikiwand.com/ru/Коломяги