The name of the next station resembles the word 'monkey' in Russian and amuses young passengers.
Surprisingly, this settlement has been around for about a thousand years. The first people settled here in the 11th century. A buried treasure of 107 West European coins from that time was discovered in the vicinity of Martyshkino in 1923.
At the time of the Novgorod republic, a village called Turya was here. It was inhabited by Finno-Ugric peasants paying taxes first to Novgorod, then to the Tsardom of Muscovy.
In the 17th century, Russia lost its lands in the vicinity of Neva for 100 years. They came to be in the possession of Sweden, and the settlement changed its name to Turis. Nyen, a town at the confluence of the Okhta and Neva rivers, was the capital of Historic Ingria. Nowadays, it's practically the centre of Saint Petersburg. Nevertheless, the government was in Turis. The spiritual centre of the Swedish rule, with a pastorate and Saint John Lutheran church, was here. The church was rebuilt in the 19th century and survived to this day, preserving the old Swedish foundation.
During Peter's reign, Turis turned into Martyshkino, which was likely derived from the name of small local birds, seagulls called 'martysh'. Another theory suggests that 'martysh' was the name of boatmen ferrying people and goods here. So, in a way, Martyshkino is the predecessor of Saint Petersburg.
In the 1860s, a small village formed here. Its dachas were rented by many famous people, for example, the Russian artist Shishkin. Local century-old oaks can be seen in his well-known paintings. Another prominent painter Savrasov, who lived in the neighbouring dacha village Mordvinovka, painted two seaside scenes here.
Ilya Repin also spent his summers in Martyshkino. Here he worked on the biggest part of his renowned painting called They Did Not Expect Him. Repin grew very fond of the nature of the southern coast of the bay. In his memoirs, he even compared the bay on a sunny day to the azure of the Mediterranean Sea, and sincerely regretted calling it a puddle on a nasty day some time ago.
Then again, to imagine such multitude of dacha-dwellers, including the famous ones, staying in Martyshkino in the second half of the 19th century is not surprising. This settlement became extremely popular thanks to the railway that appeared here in 1864. Even though trains normally only stopped at Oranienbaum, skipping Martyshkino, a special train intended for dacha-dwellers called 'Kukushka' (Cuckoo) was launched. It made additional stops near Martyshkino and other adjacent dacha settlements of Mordvinovka and Lichtenberg. The train was considered non-nominal, and students and dacha-dwellers themselves were servicing it instead of professional drivers and coal-heavers. To amuse the dacha-dwellers, the driver would hit the steam locomotive boiler with a small whip and scream 'Cuckoo'. This gave the train its name.
