[4] The district was named after Mikhail Kalinin (1875–1946), Russian Soviet Bolshevik revolutionary and politician.

Kalininsky District comprises the following seven municipal okrugs:[1] The historical nucleus of the district, together with its western neighbour Vyborgskiy District, is in the south, on the right bank of the Neva, forming the traditionally industrial Vyborg Side part of the city, the Side being the area between the Neva and the right bank of its north most major distributary the Bolshaya Nevka.

Many factories, opened there in the 19th century by Russian and European entrepreneurs, were nationalized after the Socialist Revolution of 1917 and further developed throughout most of the 20th century until 1990s fall of the Soviet Union when many of industrial facilities were closed down or moved out of town.

The early 20th-century revolutionary history of the Vyborg Side was shown in an eponymous feature film.

To the north of the industrial area, rural and semirural homes gave way since the early 1960s to mass-produced 5-, 9- and 12-storey concrete blocks of flats with spacious green courtyards and broad streets.