Dekabristov Island known before 1926 as Goloday Island (остров Голодай) is an island in Vasileostrovsky District of Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, to the north of Vasilievsky Island

Vasilievsky Island

Vasilyevsky Island is an island in Saint Petersburg, Russia, bordered by the rivers Bolshaya Neva and Malaya Neva in the south and northeast, and by the Gulf of Finland in the west. Vasilyevsky Island is separated from Dekabristov Island by the Smolenka River...

, separated from it by Smolenka River

Smolenka River

Smolenka is a minor river in the city of Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is one of the armlets of the Neva River forming its delta. It branches off the Malaya Neva armlet at , and flows through the Smolensky Cemetery into the Gulf of Finland, separating Decembrists' Island from the Vasilievsky...

 (59°57′N 30°14′E).

The island was traditionally used as a cemetery (see Smolensky Lutheran Cemetery). In the early Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

 period, the name was changed to Decembrists' Island to commemorate five executed leaders of Decembrist revolt

Decembrist revolt

The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December , 1825. Russian army officers led about 3,000 soldiers in a protest against Nicholas I's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Constantine removed himself from the line of succession...

, 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 the western Golodai Island, hiring Ivan Fomin

Ivan Fomin

Ivan Aleksandrovich Fomin was a Russian architect and educator. He began his career in 1899 in Moscow, working in the Art Nouveau style. After relocating to Saint Petersburg in 1905, he became an established master of the Neoclassical Revival movement...

 and Fyodor Lidwahl to design a neoclassical

Neoclassicism

Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...

 middle-classical neighborhood. A small part of this project was completed before World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 and the Russian revolution of 1917

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

. Eastern and northern sides of the island are heavily industrialized; western half of the island is built up with Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev  – 10 November 1982) was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , presiding over the country from 1964 until his death in 1982. His eighteen-year term as General Secretary was second only to that of Joseph Stalin in...

-era highrise.

Dekabristov Island is connected to Vasilievsky island (south) with five automobile bridges, and to a tiny Serny Island north from it. It is connected to the center of the city through Primorskaya

Primorskaya

Primorskaya is the north-western terminus of the Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro. It was designed by V.N. Sokolov, M.I. Starodubov and V.A. Penno and opened on 28 September 1979. The opening of the station, situated in the western part of Vasilievsky Island, was...

 station of Saint Petersburg Metro

Saint Petersburg Metro

The Saint Petersburg Metro is the underground railway system in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It has been open since November 15, 1955.Formerly known as the V.I...

.