Making Sense of Russian Street Names: St. Petersburg Edition

Streets named after people are the most common category throughout the country. These can be figures who have made significant contributions to Russian culture, like writers (Nekrasova St., Dostoevskogo St.), poets (Mayakovskogo St., Esenina St.), and musicians (Rimskogo-Korsakova Pr. and Glinki St.), or people of science (Tsiolkovskogo St., Professora Popova St.). 

Learn about these and other influential Russian figures in these stories:

Golden Age of Russian Literature, Part One: Pioneers

Golden Age of Russian Literature, Part Two: The Masters

The Mighty Handful: How Five Friends Changed the Landscape of Russian Music

Another large category of street names, influenced by the Soviet past, commemorates various revolutionary activists and participants of the Russian Civil War (Chapayeva St., Lunacharskogo Pr.). Another notable category honors the heroes of the Great Patriotic War (Gastello St., Tipanova St.).  

The star of the section is Vladimir Lenin, the first head of the government in Soviet Russia – streets and avenues named after him rank among the top ten most common toponyms in Russia.

ITMO examples: do you know who the streets of ITMO campuses are named after?

• Lomonosova St. honors Mikhail Lomonosov, the 18th-century polymath, scientist, and writer who is considered the father of Russian science. 

• Chaykovskogo St. is named after Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the renowned 19th-century Russian composer who wrote ballets like Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. 

• Grivtsova Ln. derives from the surname of Alexander Grivtsov, a Hero of the Soviet Union who served as a driver in the Red Army during WWII.

It’s not just people – the Soviet past in general had given new names to the streets or replaced the old ones. While some names were reverted in the 1990s, many keepsakes of that era still remain. Those symbols can represent important events, such as the Red Revolution (Revolutsii Highway), youth party organizations (Komsolskaya St.), or the working class (Proletarsky Pr.)

ITMO example: Lensoveta St. is named after the Leningrad City Soviet, the city’s legislature during the Soviet period.

Next up, here in Russia, we love dedicating streets to cities and towns, both local (Moskovsky Pr., Novosibirskaya St.) and foreign (Rizhsky Pr. named after Riga – the capital of Latvia). Sometimes, these streets are grouped together: near the Obvodny Kanal metro station, you can find a cluster of streets named after Russian cities (including Kurskaya St., Voronezhskaya St., and Tambovskaya St.); around the Udelnaya metro station, there is an area featuring streets named after European cities (like Manchesterskaya St., Drezdenskaya St., and Gdanskaya St.). However, there’s more to it than just cities. Street names can also reference countries, regions, rivers, and seas!

ITMO example: Belorusskaya St., home to an ITMO dormitory pays tribute to Belarus (surprise-surprise)!

Nature also tends to become a feature; this includes streets with names that describe the landscape or flora of the area (Ozyornaya St., Lesnoy Pr. – lit. “Lake Street” and “Forest Street”). Typically, these names reflect natural features like forests, rivers, fields, and trees, with birches being the most popular choice.

ITMO example: Pesochnaya Embankment, hosting one of ITMO campuses, literally means “Sandy”.

Sometimes it’s a significant object of infrastructure that becomes the name-maker for its vicinity. For example, where the city’s main post office stands, Pochtamtsky (“Post”) Lane emerged, a leather-making factory gave rise to Kozhevennaya (“Leatherworks”) Liniya, and the Mariinsky Theatre contributed to the name of Teatralnaya (“Theatre”) Square.

ITMO example: When visiting the ITMO campus on Birzhevaya Liniya, stop by the Spit of Vasilyevsky Island to see the Stock Exchange building, (“birzha” in Russian). That’s how the liniya (line) acquired its name!