Yaroslavsky mainline railway station – Moscow

Posted on 22/07/2024 by Michael

Yaroslavsky Station

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

Yaroslavsky mainline railway station – Moscow

Moscow Yaroslavsky railway station (Russian: Ярославский вокзал) is one of the nine main railway stations in Moscow. Situated on Komsomolskaya Square (close to the Kazansky and Leningradsky Stations), Moscow Yaroslavskaya has the highest passenger throughput of all nine of the capital’s main-line termini. It serves eastern destinations, including those in the Russian Far East, being the western terminus of the world’s longest railway line, the Trans-Siberian. The station takes its name from that of the ancient city of Yaroslavl which, lying 284 rail kilometres (176 miles) north-east of Moscow, is the first large city served by the line.

Text above from Wikipedia.

The Yaroslavsky mainline railway station in Moscow is not only the busiest of the capital’s rail hubs it is also one of the most interesting architecturally. The present building was built to replace the original 19th century station in the first decade of the 20th, therefore before the October Revolution of 1917 and the influences of the new socialist society upon architecture and decoration.

Yaroslavsky Station – early 20th century

The architect of the new building was Fyodor Schechtel, who was also responsible for other Art Nouveau buildings in Moscow.

The station is an example of Russian Art Nouveau (which, until recently, I didn’t even know existed). When compared with buildings constructed in other European countries at the same period, i.e., the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, it is possible to see the connections. Each ‘national’ art nouveau shared certain conceptions (mainly the connection to nature) but with specific aspects which were derived from the individual national culture and tradition. (To compare with examples of ‘modernismo’ in Catalunya follow some of the links on the Catalunya/Catalonia page.)

Yaroslavsky Station – 02

What might surprise some people is that when the Soviet state wanted to put it’s own ‘stamp’ on the building this was not at the expense of what had been originally created in the pre-revolutionary period.

Having not seen a comprehensive photographic record of what the building looked like prior to 1917 it is not possible to say if certain modernist decoration might have been removed to allow for that favoured under the artistic influence of Socialist Realism. Also, I’m not aware of the level of damage that might have been caused by the Nazi invasion of the Great Patriotic War and the level of reconstruction that might have been needed following the victory over German fascism. Such reconstruction would have made it easier to choose between restoration of the original decoration of the 1910s and the creation of new decorative panels which included Soviet imagery.

Yaroslavsky Station – 04

However the decoration evolved it is clear that there was a respect for the original images, even though they might have been considered as ‘bourgeois art’. The various mosaics/tiles on the exterior seem to have been kept as they would have been in 1910 and they, and the bas reliefs of animals and representations of nature from the Yaroslavl countryside, are all in very good condition. In fact all the decoration on the outside of the building is in a very good condition.

If the original imagery, for example, those which made reference to the Tsarist period, have been removed and replaced with those more fitting to a Socialist society then it was carried out in a very sympathetic and, at least to my eye, seamless manner.

Yaroslavsky Station – 03

However, there are two areas, at the very top of the building, where an obvious removal and replacement has taken place.

In the centre of the ridge crest on top of the very steep hip roof, immediately above the principal entrance, there used to be a double-headed eagle – the symbol of the imperial court. This has been replaced by a hammer and sickle (the symbol of the Soviet Union) with the letters ‘CCCP’ for Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

Yaroslavsky Station – 01

And at the very summit of the broach spire, to the left of the main entrance when looking from the street, there would have been a Christian cross which was later replaced by a star, another symbol of the Soviet state.

Whereas the exterior has been treated well and every effort made to retain what had previously been created the same cannot be said about the interior. The ticket hall and waiting area has been completely remodelled and the original decoration, if it wasn’t maliciously vandalised or removed, is now hidden behind antiseptic and anodyne modern facades. Looking at the building from the outside you can only be in Russia from the inside you could be anywhere in the ‘homogenised and globalised’ world, including the ubiquitous fast food outlets.

(However, western sanctions against Russia has had a positive effect in this area as American multinational fast food outlets have been seriously curtailed (yet not entirely eliminated – for reasons I don’t understand) so no McDonald’s – although Burger King still hangs in there for some reason – and the KFC concession to the right of the main entrance was closed when I visited the station in the summer of 2024 although open in its location opposite the Kievskaya metro station.)

However, immediately inside the main entrance the original decoration (mainly art nouveau) is still visible. This is the area which is very different from what it would have been even 20 or 30 years ago as this is the location of the obligatory security check of person and luggage. The presence of a number of security personnel resulted in one of them relieving her boredom by telling me it was not permissible to take photos so there are a limited number of pictures from the interior in the slide show below.

Yaroslavsky Station – 05

But time moves on. In rejecting the Soviet past and with the Tsarist past having far too many negative memories of feudalism the only way the modern rulers of Russia have of maintaining control of the population is by promoting the culture of superstition and ignorance. For that reason you will encounter a limited amount of religious imagery in all the mainline stations, mainly through the artifice of a small chapel and/or small shop selling religious tat.

Related;

Kievskya railway station

Stalingrad (Volgograd) Railway Station

Kazansky Mainline Railway Station – Moscow

Moscow (and Leningrad) Metro

Kazansky Mainline Railway Station – Moscow

Architect;

Fyodor Schechtel

Location;

5 Komsomolskaya Square

GPS;

55.776°N

37.658°E

More on the USSR

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

Lenin and October Revolution Monument in the Kaluga Square – Moscow

Posted on 20/07/2024 by Michael

Lenin and October Revolution

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Lenin and October Revolution Monument in the Kaluga Square – Moscow

The Monument to Lenin on Kaluga Square (Russian: Памятник Ленину на Калужской площади) was established in 1985 in Moscow in the centre of Kaluga Square (then October Square). The authors of the monument are the sculptors L. E. Kerbel, V. A. Fedorov and the architects G. V. Makarevich and B. A. Samsonov. It is the largest monument to Lenin in Moscow.

Lenin and October Revolution – 03

The bronze sculpture of V. I. Lenin was made at the Leningrad factory ‘Monument sculpture’. It is an original copy of the monument to Lenin in Birobidzhan, established in 1978. A stone monolithic pedestal column weighing 360 tons, after the initial treatment, was delivered in place by a trailer that had 128 wheels. The monument was inaugurated on 5 November 1985 by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Mikhail Gorbachev.

The height of the monument is 22 m. At the top of the cylindrical column of red polished granite is a full length bronze statue of V. I. Lenin. He is facing forward, his gaze to the distance. Lenin’s overcoat is unbuttoned, one lower edge is thrown back by the wind, his right hand is in the jacket’s pocket.

Lenin and October Revolution – 02

At the base of the pedestal is a multi-figure composition, which includes revolutionary soldiers, workers and sailors of various nationalities. Above them is a woman on the background of a fluttering flag embodying the Revolution. Behind the pedestal is the figure of a woman with two children, personifying the rear of the revolution. The elder boy in his hand has revolutionary newspapers.

Text above from (a slightly edited page on) Wikipedia.

Lenin and October Revolution – 01

What to look for in the monument;

the three leading figures are, from left to right, a peasant soldier, an armed Petrograd worker, a sailor;
the peasant soldier wears a knotted red ribbon over his left chest – the red arm band was the normal sign of a Bolshevik but this is difficult to represent on a bronze statue. Whether the red ribbon was an alternative ‘badge’ I’m not sure;
the female representation of Revolution, that is located above the revolutionary workers and peasants and below Lenin. She has her right arm raised forward and upward – indicating the advance of the revolution – and her left arm stretched behind her I a pose that invites others to join the march to the future. Her flowing scarf is a representation of the Red Flag, the workers’ revolutionary standard;
the leading sailor (note the striped t-shirt under his jacket) also has his left arm stretched behind him, also encouraging those (unseen) behind to come and join the revolution, he’s also looking in their direction. He, and the female sailor on the other side of the group, were probably from the Cruiser Aurora;
the older workers/peasants indicating that the revolution is not just a matter for the young, their dress suggesting that they are possibly from other nations in the old Russian Empire and stressing the All-Russia aspect of the October Revolution;
the engraving at the back of the red marble plinth which notes the sculptors and architects as well as the date of the monuments unveiling;
the young mother, holding a very young child in crook of her right arm and her left hand on the shoulder of an older boy, representing for the new and youthful Socialist Republic that was being created following the attack on the Winter Palace;
the young boy newspaper seller next to the young woman. He has copies of the newspaper Izvestia (which had been founded in February 1917 and which, at the time, was the mouthpiece of the Petrograd Soviet) folded over his right forearm and more copies in a satchel hanging from his left shoulder. The headline also indicates information about one of the first decrees of the Soviet Government, possibly that on Peace and an end to the imperialist war;
another young boy who, from his looks and dress, comes from one of the many northern nationalities;
the male peasant (again from one of the nationalities – note his turban type headdress) holding a copy of the Decree on Land – which nationalised all the land in the country;
what looks like a female sailor (note the anchor on her belt buckle) who is armed with a pistol and wears a red neckerchief – but I have no information about women in the navy in pre-Revolutionary times;
and surmounting all a full length statue of VI Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik Party (which became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). He has an open overcoat over his suit, the right lower edge of which is being blown back by the wind. He is standing with his right hand in his suit jacket pocket and his cap is scrunched in his left hand. He’s looking ahead, in a contemplative pose, perhaps wondering what to do next and how to overcome the inevitable problems.

Not exactly sure what Lenin might have been looking at when the statue was installed in 1985 but now he looks down a long avenue towards the Moscva River – across which is the area know as ‘Moscow City’, an area of densely packed, ugly, modern high rise glass and steel buildings.

‘Moscow City’

However, if Vladimir Ilyich looked slightly to his left he would be looking at the main entrance to the Okysbrskaya Metro station.

Oktyabrskaya entrance

Sculptors;

L. E. Kerbel and V. A. Fedorov

Architects;

G. V. Makarevich and B. A. Samsonov.

Location;

In Kaluga Square (formerly October Square), at the junction of Lenin Prospekt and Krymsky Val, opposite the main entrance to Oktyabrskaya Metro station

GPS;

55.729466°N

37.613176°E

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Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

Posted on 19/07/2024 by Michael

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad

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Children and crocodile fountain – Railway station square – Stalingrad

Barmaley Fountain

The Barmaley (Russian: Бармалей) is an informal name of a fountain in the city of Volgograd (formerly known as Stalingrad). Its official name is Children’s Khorovod (Round Dance). The statue is of a circle of six children dancing the khorovod around a crocodile. While the original fountain was removed in the 1950s, two replicas were installed in 2013.

The original fountain was installed in 1930 when the Soviet Union was being adorned with various outdoor architectural works, including similar fountains designed by sculptor Romuald Iodko, a co-author of the Girl with an Oar. The Barmaley Fountain was made widely known from several August 1942 photographs by Emmanuil Evzerikhin that juxtaposed the carnage of the Battle of Stalingrad with the image of children at play.

Children and crocodile statue 1942

The fountain was restored after World War II and was removed in the 1950s.

The allegory of the monument was derived from the eponymous fairy tale poem Barmaley written in 1925 by Korney Chukovsky. Excerpt (literal translation):

Little children! / For nothing in the world / Do not go to Africa / Do not go to Africa for a walk! // In Africa, there are sharks, / In Africa, there are gorillas, / In Africa, there are large / Evil crocodiles / They will bite you, / Beat and offend you – // Don’t you go, children, / to Africa for a walk / In Africa, there is a robber, / In Africa, there is a villain, / In Africa, there is terrible / Bahr-mah-ley! // He runs about Africa / And eats children – / Nasty, vicious, greedy Barmaley!

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad – 01

While being burned in fire by Barmaley, Doctor Aybolit asked a crocodile brought in by a gorilla to swallow up Barmaley, so that he could no longer harm little children. The crocodile did so, but Barmaley was later released after promising to change. Barmaley became nicer and proclaimed he would be kinder, that he now loved little children and would become a friendly baker.

Text above from Wikipedia.

Children and crocodile fountain – after liberation 1943

As with many of the monuments in post-Socialist countries it’s not easy to get definitive and exact information about them. Very often the sources that do exist are contradictory or ask more questions than they answer.

It seems the statue had been removed but then replaced with a replica – but I have no idea what happened to the original.

When I saw the same statue that now sits outside the Volgograd Number 1 railway station on the grass below the Gerhardt Mill (the large building next to the Stalingrad Panorama Museum, demonstrating the extent of the damage during the siege) I thought that it was the original, placed there to protect it from any vandalism. However, that is not certain.

What is omitted from the ‘description’ above is that all the children are Young Pioneers, the youth organisation of the Soviet Union. This is evident from the fact that all of them wear the red neckerchief, part of the uniform of Komsomol members. This might imply a political significance of children dancing around a dangerous animal.

Barmaley Fountain – Stalingrad – 02

It’s easy to see why the people of Stalingrad adopted this statue. When it was photographed, dirty but mainly intact, surrounded by the destruction wrought by the Nazi invaders’ bombers it represented the determination of the people to resist the fascists. The children stood for the resilience of the Socialist state.

I find the ideas in the poem from which the statue gets one of its names somewhat strange.

The sculptor was Romuald Iodko and the creation date is stated to be 1930.

When I visited Stalingrad in the summer of 2024 the fountain was not working.