Moscow Rail Terminal
Encyclopedia
Moskovsky Rail Terminal , also called Moscow Rail Terminal, with an easily recognizable Neo-Renaissance
Neo-Renaissance
Renaissance Revival is an all-encompassing designation that covers many 19th century architectural revival styles which were neither Grecian nor Gothic but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of classicizing Italian modes...

 frontage on Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Prospekt
Nevsky Avenue |Prospekt]]) is the main street in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia. Planned by Peter the Great as beginning of the road to Novgorod and Moscow, the avenue runs from the Admiralty to the Moscow Railway Station and, after making a turn at Vosstaniya Square, to the Alexander...

 and Uprising Square, is a terminal railway station in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

. It is a terminus for the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway
Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway
The Moscow to Saint Petersburg Railway is a railway running between the two largest Russian cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and through four oblasts: Moscow, Tver, Novgorod and Leningrad...

 and other lines running from Central and South Russia, Siberia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea.

The oldest preserved station in the city, it was erected in 1851 to a design by Konstantin Thon
Konstantin Thon
Konstantin Andreyevich Thon, also spelled Ton was an official architect of Imperial Russia during the reign of Nicholas I. His major works include the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, the Grand Kremlin Palace and the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow....

. As Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...

 was the reigning monarch and the greatest patron of railway construction in the realm, the station was named Nicholaevsky after him. Rechristened Oktyabrsky to memorialize the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 in 1924, the station was not given its present name until 1930.
Although large "Venetian" windows, two floors of Corinthian columns and a two-storey clocktower at the centre explicitly reference Italian Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 architecture, the building incorporates other features from a variety of periods and countries. A twin train station, currently known as the Leningradsky Rail Terminal, was built to Thon's design at the other end of the railway, in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

.

While Thon's facade remains fundamentally intact to this day, the station was expanded in 1869-79 and 1912. It was completely redeveloped internally in 1950-52 and 1967. A bronze bust of Peter the Great in the main vestibule was unveiled in 1993. The terminal is served by the Mayakovskaya
Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line
The Nevsko-Vasileostrovskaya Line , is a line of the Saint Petersburg Metro, opened in 1967. Since 1994, it has been officially designated as Line 3. It stands out among St. Petersburg metro lines for two reasons — its stations are almost exclusively of "Horizontal Lift" type and it has the...

 and Vosstaniya Square
Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line
Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line is the oldest line of the Saint Petersburg Metro, opened in 1955. The original stations are very beautiful and elaborately decorated, especially Avtovo and Narvskaya. The line connects four out of five Saint Petersburg's main railway stations...

 stations of the Saint Petersburg Metro
Saint Petersburg Metro
The Saint Petersburg Metro is the underground railway system in Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It has been open since November 15, 1955.Formerly known as the V.I...

, with both stations linked to the terminal by an underground corridor.
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