Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - A Savin

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – A Savin

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 01

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 01

Teatralnaya (Russian: Театра́льная, English: Theater) is an underground metro station on the Zamoskvoretskaya line of the Moscow Metro, named for the nearby Teatralnaya Square, the location of numerous theatres, including the famed Bolshoi Theatre. The station is unique in that it does not have its own entrance halls. The north escalator leads to Okhotniy Ryad and the south escalator to Ploshchad Revolyutsii.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 04

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 04

History

Ploshchad Sverdlova station opened on September 11, 1938, as part of the second stage of construction of the Moscow Metro system. It was the terminal station of the Zamoskvoretskaya line until the line was extended on January 1, 1943. Teatralnaya’s architect was Ivan Fomin. The station is located at a depth of 33.9 meters (111 feet). The central hall has a diameter of 9.5 meters (31 feet), with an 8.5 meters (28 feet) lateral lining of cast-iron tubing.

From its opening until 1990, the station’s name was Ploshchad Sverdlova, which was named in honour of the prominent Bolshevik, Yakov Sverdlov. In 1990, the city changed the name of the square to Teatralnaya Ploshchad. The name of the station followed accordingly.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 03

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – 03

Decoration

Teatralnaya Station has fluted pylons faced with labradorite and white marble taken from the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Crystal lamps in bronze frames attached to the centre of the room give the central hall a festive appearance. The vault of the central hall is decorated with caissons and majolica bas-reliefs by Natyla Danko on the theme of theatre arts of the USSR, manufactured by Leningrad Porcelain Factory. These bas-reliefs are a series of fourteen different figures, each representing music and dance from various nationalities of the Soviet Union. Seven male and seven female figures attired in their national costumes are either performing an ethnic dance or are playing a distinctively ethnic musical instrument. The series included Armenia, Byelorussia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Each figure is reproduced four times for a total of 56 figures. Initially, the floor was of black-and-yellow granite patterned as a chessboard; however in 1970, the yellow panels were replaced with gray.

Teatralnaya - Line 2 - 02

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A bust of Yakov Sverdlov, for whom the station was originally named, was located at the end of the platform opposite the escalators. Only the base remains today. A bust of Vladimir Lenin was however, preserved.

Text from Wikipedia.

Location:

Tverskoy District, Central Administrative Okrug

GPS:

55.7578°N

37.6190°E

Depth:

33.9 metres (111ft)

Opened:

11 September 1938

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Celebrate the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

Aurora

Aurora

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Celebrate the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

Today is the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution that started in the early hours of 7th November (25th October – old style) 1917, when the battleship Aurora, anchored on the Neva River in Petrograd, fired its guns to signal the attack on the Winter Palace and to begin the destruction of the failed Tsarist State of Russia.

The actual revolution was relatively painless and easy – maintaining it in the early days and then the years from 1918 to 1922 when White reaction tried to turn back the tide of history was much more difficult. Even with the full and active support of the world’s imperialist and capitalist powers (who had spent the previous 4 years trying to physically destroy each other) they failed. The glorious Red Army of the workers and peasants, of what was to become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (the Soviet Union), displayed their mettle, courage and determination against all comers in order to attempt – for the first time in the world – the momentous and glorious task of the construction of Socialism (leading to Communism) the only way for the oppressed and exploited of the world to finally liberate themselves from the shackles of thousands of years.

Through the trials and tribulations of the 1920s and 1930s the young Socialist state was able to achieve many successes and as well as making mistakes (although this doesn’t include the purging of the Party of opportunist elements) – both from which future generations will have to learn. Mistakes are to be expected. The first to make their way to their goal along an uncharted course will always face difficulties that for the weak are insurmountable. The Soviet people, under the leadership of the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) (CPSU(B)) of Comrades Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Joseph Stalin, showed themselves up for the task.

This was never more so than during some of the darkest days in Europe where it was the Red Army of the Socialist Republic which defeated the Nazi Beast and chased it down to its lair to make the victory final. The debt that the people of Europe, and the world, owe to those courageous Soviet men and women is incalculable.

But the road to a new future is tortuous and difficult. Traitors within ally with the forces of reaction without and undermine the achievements of the past with false promises of plenty in the world of capitalist dominance. In these times of the victory of reaction, ignorance and opportunism there are some (a very few) who benefit from the theft of the public wealth but for the majority of the population such changes are a disaster, in economic, political and cultural terms.

Capitalism never has, doesn’t now and never will offer any long term future for the benefit of the majority of the population of the world.

The victory of Revisionism (and ultimately capitalism) in the Soviet Union in the 1950s was later followed by the collapse of the Socialist systems in the other major revolutionary societies of the People’s Republic of China, the People’s Socialist Republic of Albania and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Other societies in Eastern Europe which also attempted to build a new society were to later fall lacking the substance to remain independent (for reasons that are too complex to go into here).

This means that 104 years after the momentous events in what was to become (and still is) Leningrad the world is yet again totally dominated by the moribund system of capitalism and imperialism.

People continue to fight – they always will – but without the leadership, the strategy and the perspective that can lead them to a bright future. Issue politics dominate and even in those national liberation movements that are nascent in certain countries the movement is fractured, divided and weak.

Comrade Mao Tse-tung, said that ‘either revolution will prevent a world war or a world war will lead to revolution’. That insightful analysis is as pertinent now as it was many years ago – at a time when the tide of revolution was on the rise.

For the world is becoming a dangerous place once more – with various capitalist/imperialist states jockeying for position of dominance.

The leaders of the erstwhile Socialist states of China and Russia no longer have the social conscience of the revisionists of the past. Even the arch-renegade Khrushchev recognised that when faced with the belligerent and bellicose attitude of the warmonger Kennedy in 1961 in Cuba. The American imperialists were prepared to destroy the world in order to determine what should happen in ‘their back yard’ but it was Khrushchev who made the moral decision to withdraw and prevent a potential nuclear holocaust – even against the wishes of the Cuban people themselves.

Now the contending forces no longer have that social conscience ‘brake’ on their ambitions.

However, the future does not belong to the old order. It constantly demonstrates, even in its homelands, that the sufferings of working people are of no concern and that their lives are expendable if they produce no profit for their system.

Yes, the weapons at the disposal of these warmongers are vastly superior and more destructive than those available just a few decades ago. If the world falls into another international conflict (different from the surrogate wars that have dominated the last 70 or more years) then the destruction will be immense and there are doubts whether society would be able to recover from such devastation.

That makes learning the lessons of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the strategy and tactics, the importance of leadership, the embedding of the Party amongst the population even more of an urgent task.

The people will win, ultimately. What they have to do is to decide if they want to build a new society free from exploitation when conditions are more or less stable or whether they want to do so from the ashes and in a poisonous atmosphere of a world destroyed at the whim of capitalism, whether it be through the destruction of the ecosystem due to the constant thirst for profit or the result of a nuclear or biological holocaust.

Long live the Great October Socialist Revolution!

Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Forward to a future free of exploitation and oppression!

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Moscow Metro – Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - by A Savin

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – by A Savin

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 05

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 05

Ploshchad Revolyutsii (Пло́щадь Револю́ции) is a station on the Moscow Metro, in the Tverskoy District of central Moscow. The station is named after Revolution Square (Resurrection Square until 1918), under which it is located. It is on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 01

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 01

When the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line was first built, the tracks from Ploshchad Revolyutsii extended westward to Aleksandrovsky Sad rather than Arbatskaya. When the westward extension of the line was completed in 1953, trains were rerouted through the new segment.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 04

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 04

The station opened in 1938, its architect was Alexey Dushkin. The station features red and yellow marble arches resting on low pylons faced with black Armenian marble. The spaces between the arches are partially filled by decorative ventilation grilles and ceiling tracery.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 02

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 02

The station contains 76 statues in the socialist realism style. Originally, 80 sculptures were created for the space—10 pairs, each replicated 4 times throughout the station. Today, nine pairs are in the archways, and a copy of the final pair (‘The Pioneers’) appears on each of the two platforms, bringing the total number of statues to 76. Each arch is flanked by a pair of bronze sculptures by Matvey Manizer depicting the people of the Soviet Union, including soldiers, farmers, athletes, writers, aviators, industrial workers, and schoolchildren. The series is meant to be considered in order, symbolizing Russia’s transformation from the pre-revolutionary past, through the revolution, into the (then) contemporary era. The order of sculpture pairs are:

  1. Male worker-partisan and male enlisted soldier
  2. Male agricultural labourer and male sailor with pistol
  3. Male sailor and female aviator
  4. Male soldier with dog and female sharpshooter
  5. Male miner and male engineer
  6. Male and female agricultural labourers
  7. Female and male students
  8. Male football player and female athlete
  9. Mother and father in swim clothing
  10. Male and female students in Young Pioneers uniforms

Several of the sculptures are widely believed to bring good luck to those who rub them. The practice is targeted at specific areas on individual sculptures, including the soldier’s pistol, the patrolman’s dog, the roosters, and the female student’s shoe. An observer in the station will see numerous passengers touching or rubbing the statues as they pass, and the bronze of these details is highly polished as a result.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Line 3 - 03

Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3 – 03

From this station, passengers can transfer to Teatralnaya on the Zamoskvoretskaya Line and Okhotny Ryad on the Sokolnicheskaya Line, but the latter can be reached only through Teatralnaya as there is no direct transfer.

Text from Wikipedia.

Location:

GPS:

55.7566°N

37.6216°E

Depth:

33.6 metres (110 ft)

Opened:

13 March 1938

More on the USSR

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery