And in the southwest – “Vostochka”

Elabuga is an amazing city, which creates legends, myths, gives strange and illogical names to its streets and areas from nothing, from the air even in our time. One of these modern “legends” is the whole new part of Elabuga – the “Vostochka”.
 

Error in the documents.

In those days, when the exploitation of oil mineral resources in Elabuga began, there was a need for new residential buildings. According to the original plan, the area to built-up was on lands in direction to Maliy Bor (Small Pine Forest), that is, Elabuga farm land. Development plan has been worked out quite seriously, and even a name for the newly created district of buildings was thought up – the neighborhood Eastern. The name perfectly reflected its geographical position.

But in the process of concordance in the higher bodies, agricultural lands were not allowed to be developed. It was proposed to develop a vacant lot at the upper south-western part. Name of the project “Eastern neighborhood” was saved in documentation, and the first street of the new neighborhood was called “Vostochnaya” (the Eastern).

As most of Elabuga people did not know about plans of the original project, transferring of the construction site and name of the neighborhood, there came out an explanation of why the street, located in the southwestern part of the city, was called the Eastern. This was explained by the fact that the windows of the houses faced the east. By this time, the name “vostochka” was allotted to the new buildings, and native people (especially of the lower part) still call “vostochka” all Elabuga new districts.

Brigade “Vostochnaya” (Eastern).

There is another version of naming the new buildings “vostochka”. During the construction of new Elabuga, there was lack of local workers and professionals, and in those years teams of builders-fitters who wandered from one great construction site to another (KamAZ, NizhnekamskNeftekhim and others) were widely practiced. So, one of the brigades, which built houses and social objects in Elabuga, had the name “Vostochnaya” (Eastern), hence all that they built was called by residents “Built by eastern”. Further, having contracted “ostochnaya” for convenience to “vostochka”, people forgot about the original meaning of the word, and the name “vostochka” was allotted to built neighborhoods.