Pargolovo is St. Petersburg’s outskirt, it begins behind the railway bridge on the Vyborg highway. It has the status of an urban-type settlement, which is part of the Vyborgsky district of St. Petersburg, but is located outside the city edges. Locals are very proud that their village, located right behind the new buildings, is much older than St. Petersburg itself.
There are different versions of where the name of the ancient Parkola village came from: either from the Finnish name Parko, or from the Finnish word “pergan” – “devil”. According to ancient legends, that long ago these places were covered in a dense forest, causing superstitious fear with the residents. However, there is another legend – as if the name Pargolovo was connected with the military affairs of Peter the Great during the years of the Northern War: he fought with the Swedes there so fiercely that “steam was coming from the heads” (in Russian Pargolovo sounds like par + golova, steam + head).
According to the old-timers’ memoirs, the Pargolites always considered themselves special. They divided all people into Pargolovskys and strangers.
Since the end of the nineteenth century, cottage industry flourished in Pargolovo. However, some time ago, those places were recommended by the capital’s doctors as “favorable for health”. There was a reason for that: when cholera broke out in St. Petersburg in the 1830s, many citizens tried to escape from it in Pargolovo. And then the summer “industry” began to work. Local peasants rented their land to the “city riches” who built two-story mansions on it.
Modern Pargolovo also retains its rural character. On Norilskaya street, the length of which is only 593 meters, mainly private houses are located.
The street got its name in 2010 along with four other streets. Their names continue the local tradition of naming after the geographic objects of the eastern part of Russia. Nevyanskaya, Vyatkinskaya, Yeniseiskaya and Tomskaya streets appeared in Pargolovo this way.
Text: Elena Popova, Photo: open sources
