There are various versions of who the original Vasily was, though these may be a product of false etymology, as the Russian name of the island may in fact be a corruption of its previous Swedish or Finnish name, because the island had been shown under them on Swedish maps before its present Russian history began after the Great Northern War.

The southern embankment (with its western part named after St Petersburg University located there) has some of the oldest buildings in the city dated from 18th century.

That part of the island is notable for its rectangular grid of streets (originally intended to be canals, like in Amsterdam), with three lengthwise thoroughfares called prospekts – Bolshoi (Big), Sredniy (Middle) and Maly (Small) – going roughly from east to west, and with about 30 crosswise Linii (Lines)[4] forming about 15 peculiarly numbered streets going perpendicularly from south to north.

The easternmost tip of the island, called Strelka (spit, literally Arrow), features a number of museums, including the Old Saint Petersburg Stock Exchange (Bourse) as well as two Rostral columns, and is a popular tourist attraction.

The edifices lining the Universitetskaya Embankment along the Bolshaya Neva include the Kunstkamera, Twelve Collegia, Menshikov Palace, Imperial Academy of Sciences, and St. Andrew's Cathedral – all dating from the 18th century.

Another recent notable attraction was an animated floating anchored illuminated musical fountain located just off the Spit.

A monument to Vasily, the legendary Peter I's local gunners' battery commander after whom the island may have been named, was opened in 2003.

The principal buildings of Saint Petersburg State University are located on the island and include the Twelve Collegia by Domenico Tresini (1722–44) and the former palace of Peter II of Russia.

They include the institutes of: soils study, zoology, optics, aerial photography, Precambrian and general geology, polymers, world ethnography and anthropology, physiology, chemistry of silicate and fireproof compounds.

[7][8] Energy supply to many industrial facilities and housing in the island is provided by a cogeneration thermal power station.

Another redevelopment spot is claimed to change part or all of the site of former Steel-rolling Plant (Staleprokatniy zavod - Rus.

Сталепрокатный завод[10]), presently known as Saint Petersburg Precision Alloys Foundry (Peterburgskiy zavod pretsezionnykh splavov).

Until recently, all of Saint Petersburg Metro escalators as well as those for all the underground railroad systems of the former Soviet Union were made since the 1950s at a local facility called Zavod "Eskalator", now known as LATRES (Rus.