Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Metro – Avtovo – Line 1

Avtovo - Alex 'Florstein' Fedorov

Avtovo – Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov

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Moscow Metro – the world’s biggest Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) Metro – Avtovo – Line 1

Avtovo - 04

Avtovo – 04

Avtovo (Russian: А́втово) is a station on the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line of the Saint Petersburg Metro. Designed by architect Yevgenii Levinson, it opened as part of the first Leningrad Metro line on November 15, 1955. In 2014, The Guardian included it on the list of 12 most beautiful metro stations in the world.

Avtovo - 02

Avtovo – 02

Avtovo’s unique and highly ornate design features columns faced with ornamental glass manufactured at the Lomonosov factory. Although the original plan envisaged using glass on all of the columns in the station, white marble was substituted on some due to time constraints. This marble was supposed to be temporary, but it has never been replaced. The walls are faced with white marble and adorned on the north side by a row of ornamental ventilation grilles. At the end of the platform a mosaic by V.A. Voronetskiy and A.K. Sokolov commemorates the Leningrad Blockade (1941-1944) during the Second World War.

Avtovo - 03

Avtovo – 03

Unlike the other stations on the first line, Avtovo is a shallow-level station, constructed using the cut and cover method. It belongs to the shallow column class of underground stations.

Avtovo - 01

Avtovo – 01

Avtovo has as its entrance vestibule a large Neoclassical building with a domed cupola, located on the east side of Prospekt Stachek.

Text from Wikipedia.

Location:

Kirovsky District

GPS:

59°52′02.37″N

30°15′40.87″E

Depth:

12m (39ft)

Opened:

November 15, 1955

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Moscow Metro – the world’s biggest Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Okhotny Ryad

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - Alex 'Florstein' Fedorov

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Alex ‘Florstein’ Fedorov

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Ploshchad Revolyutsii to Okhotny Ryad

The long corridor between the two stations is remarkable not just for the imagery that still exists but for the great number of empty spaces that, at one time, would have included sculptures and representations of the Soviet Union’s struggle to build Socialism.

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - 01

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – 01

Presented here is an introduction to this corridor used by thousands of people everyday, few of whom will take notice of the beauty and the work that went into the construction of the system dating from the mid-1930s. In what that remains there’s an emphasis on imagery from the Great Patriotic War

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii - 02

Transfer from Ploshchad Revolyutsii – 02

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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

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 above from Wikipedia.

Teatralnaya

Date of opening;

11th September 1938, known as Ploshchad Sverdlova till the 5th November 1990

Construction of the station;

deep, pier, three-span

Architect of the underground part;

I. Fomin

Transition to stations Okhotny Ryad and Ploshchad Revolyutsii

The cubic pylons of Teatralnaya are faced with slightly yellowish grainy marble. The pylon edges are decorated with round broken-rib columns. Lamp-brackets with two white spherical shades are between the columns. Benches are placed at the bases of the pylons.

The vault of the very short central hall is decorated with rhomb-like coffers, while the vaults of the track tunnels are with square coffers. There are round porcelain medallions alone the base of the main vault – ‘Folk Music and Dance’ manufactured at the Leningrad Porcelain Factory by painter

Danko’s cartoons. The transit to station Okhotny Ryad begins with a bridge in the central part of hall, which ends by a small hall from which a long running-up passageway starts (built in 1945-1946). The left and right walls of the small hall have medallions with Chaikovsky’s profiles. The pediments of the bridge are adorned with bas-reliefs of pair ballet jump and ballet support. The northern exit ends in the underground entrance hall common with station Okhotny Ryad. There is a portrait of K. Marx on the wall made of red and white marble as Florentine mosaic.

Text from Moscow Metro 1935-2005, p68/9

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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Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery