The settlement was founded in 1858 and served the railway station of Preobrazhenskaya. The name is related to the Preobrazhensky Regiment which was stationed nearby. An early enterprise in the settlement was a sawmill. By the end of the 19th century, the settlement was also a popular summer house area. At the time, it belonged to Luzhsky Uyezd of Saint Petersburg Governorate (subsequently Petrograd Governorate and Leningrad Governorate). In 1919, the station and the settlement were renamed Tolmachyovo to commemorate Nikolay Tolmachyov, a bolshevik killed in the area during the Russian Civil War.