1898–1917: The Emergence and Development of the Losinoostrovsky Settlement The first settlement on the territory of what is now the Losinoostrovsky District was founded in 1898, following the opening of the 10th Versta platform of the Moscow-Yaroslavl Railway (later transformed into the Losinoostrovskaya sorting station in 1902). At that time, the forested area between the railway and the
Yauza River was allocated by the Department of Appanages for dacha (summer house) plots. The first settlement was named Losinoostrovsk. Closer to the "Perlovskaya" platform, another settlement, Dzhamgarovka, was later established (the name derives from the famous Moscow bankers, the Dzhamgarov brothers, who owned
dachas here; the Dzhamgarovs were also among the main developers of the western part of Losinoostrovskaya). To the west, Losinoostrovsk bordered the estates of Richter. The popularity of the area was also explained by its closeness to the capital, with the train journey to Moscow taking 13–15 minutes (in 1913, trains departed approximately every 40 minutes during the summer). Shortly after the start of development, at the initiative of the Dzhamgarov brothers, the pond on the Ichka River was deepened. In 1905, a Society for Improvement was organized. The first streets of Losinoostrovskaya were clearings cut through the forest, but by the early 1900s, active improvement began: streets were illuminated with kerosene lamps, a summer theater and tennis court were built, and a volunteer fire brigade was established: 5. By 1905, a "public park, one verst long and covering 14.5 desyatinas": On March 14, 1911, the "Society for the Improvement of the Dacha Locality 'Dzhamgarovka'" was established. By 1913, the settlement had its own telephone substation (established in 1906, serving 60 numbers by 1913 Until 1921, the settlement of Losinoostrovsk was part of the
Sokolniki District of Moscow. On November 27, 1921, it was incorporated into the Moscow
Uyezd of Moscow Governorate.
The 1920s During the 1920s, the cultural development of the settlement continued. An experimental laboratory museum for the study of the district was organized on Ostashkovskoye Highway. In 1925, Losinoostrovskaya was granted city status. The first city council was located in the building of the former wooden Church of the Holy Trinity on Sovetskaya Street (later it moved to a five-story residential building, now 20/2 Comintern Street). The population of the new city grew rapidly, and Losinoostrovsk developed as a satellite city of Moscow. In 1929, the railway connecting the city to Moscow was electrified. By the 1920s, electric lighting had been introduced in Losinoostrovsky. From the 1930s, industrial development began in the city, with the commissioning of a furniture factory, a musical instrument factory, and a plant producing
railway signaling systems, among others. Four schools built at the beginning of the 20th century continued to operate (in 1930, the first brick school was built, replacing the gymnasium that burned down in 1922), and the former zemstvo hospital remained active. A club for railway workers was established on Sovetskaya Street. In the mid-1930s, the
Metro Construction Administration built a five-story brick house on the corner of Medvedkovskaya Street (now 2/21 Lenskaya Street), which housed a store, a clinic, a post office, and a radio center. Medical services for the city's residents also improved: in 1927, a clinic was opened on Medvedkovskaya Street, in 1929 a maternity hospital began operating on the same street, and in 1937 a second clinic was established in the northern part of the city, on the territory of the former dacha settlement of Dzhamgarovka.
Renaming and Further Development In 1939, the city was renamed in honor of polar aviator M.S. Babushkin, who was born near Losinoostrovskaya (today, a monument to the aviator stands in Babushkinsky Park, and one of the district's main streets is named after him). The main street of the city was Sovetskaya (now Rudneva Street). The primary recreational area for residents was Babushkinsky Park of Culture and Leisure, which featured a wooden cinema,
Babushkinsky (now replaced by the
Arktika cinema). The park had several sculptural compositions, of which only the monument to
A.S. Pushkin has survived to this day. In 1960, the city of Babushkin was incorporated into Moscow. In 1964, a large hospital complex (now Hospital No. 20, 15 Lenskaya Street) was built on the territory of the former city of Babushkin.
Post-War Development In the
1950s and
1960s, a significant part of the district was built up with standard brick houses, mostly five stories high. In the 1970s, the blocks north of Malygina Street, as well as Naprudnye Streets, were developed. On the site of the Dzhamgarov estate house, a veterans' hospital was built. The district's dacha past is still recalled by the apple orchards in
Torfyanka Park and the numerous cherry trees in the city's courtyards. Until relatively recently, there were more buildings in the district that remembered the dacha life of old Losinka: these included the burned-down houses near Losinoostrovskaya Station and on Comintern Street (the latter, a dacha from the 1910s, was built in the
Art Nouveau style); a two-story wooden house from the 1910s (18/14 Izumrudnaya Street), demolished in the summer of 2008. ==See also==