Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

Posted on 26/01/2024 by Michael

Teatralnaya – Line 2 – A Savin

Moscow Metro – a Socialist Realist Art Gallery

Moscow Metro – Teatralnaya – Line 2

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

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

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.

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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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Celebrate the 104th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

Posted on 07/11/2021 by Michael

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

Posted on 03/05/2023 by Michael

Ploshchad Revolutsii

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Moscow Metro – Ploshchad Revolyutsii – Line 3

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

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

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

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:

Male worker-partisan and male enlisted soldier
Male agricultural labourer and male sailor with pistol
Male sailor and female aviator
Male soldier with dog and female sharpshooter
Male miner and male engineer
Male and female agricultural labourers
Female and male students
Male football player and female athlete
Mother and father in swim clothing
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

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 above from Wikipedia.

Ploshchad Revolyutsii

Date of opening;

13th March 1938

Construction of the station;

deep, pier, three-span

Architect of the underground part;

A. Dushkin

Sculptor; M. Manizer

Transition to stations Okhotny Ryad and Teatralnaya

Ploshchad Revolyutsii is one of the most known and popular stations of the Moscow Metro. The idea of its architectural decoration is absolutely clear, while the form of realisation, which has been used by sculptor M. Manizer, is intelligible and understandable for everyone. He stationed a gallery of figures [personages of the revolution, civil war, and peaceful development) under ground, which illustrated the stages of the creation of the Soviet country. The statues are established on pedestals nestled into niches between the station’s pylons. Each pylon has four bronze figures, which look through famous stages of the revolution – from the civil war to the peak of the Stalin era.

Now there are 76 (initially 80) bronze figures. The Manizer’s gallery begins from the western end of the central hall. At the time of opening, it was the only exit while the opposite blind end was decorated with a pair bas relief of Lenin and Stalin, which crowned ‘the triumphal step of the Soviet people’. The bas-relief was dismantled in 1947 after the opening of the eastern overland vestibule. There are 20 unique figures in total. The gallery begins with a revolutionary worker (bow on the bosom) with a grenade and a trench soldier. In the next niche – a peasant and revolutionary sailor with a famous revolver, which is regularly stolen. Then, parachutist girl and signal sailor from Marat cruiser. In the fourth arch – a Voroshilov rifle girl with pneumatic rifle and a frontier guard with a lucky dog. If one wants to catch luck, it is needed to rub the dog’s nose. In the fifth arch – Stakhanovite (rewarded Soviet worker) with air hammer and an engineer who examines a gear wheel and records something in a book. His pencil is also regularly stolen. In the sixth arch – a poultry-woman with chicken and grain-grower machine-operator sitting on a Fordson’s wheel. Then, a dreaming student boy and reading student girl. In the eighth arch – discus thrower girl and football player. In the ninth arch – a father with a child and mother with a child. In the tenth arch on the side of the platforms – a model aircraft constructor pioneer boys and geographer pioneer girls. All figures sit, or are on their knees, or bended for work. It was even a joke – ‘Here all the Soviet people sits (in Russian means be imprisoned as well) or is on its knees’.

The other decoration of the station serves to emphasize the figures but do not withdraw attention from them – narrow edgings of red marble along the arches of the inter-pylon passageways, black marble covered the low pedestals of the statues, grey-blue on the walls. The ceiling is a chessboard of granite plates of subdued grey and pink colours. There are very uncomfortable oak benches along the platform walls opposite the stops of first and last carriages. They are separated from each other by stone pedestals covered with black marble. There is a bronze arrow with inscription ‘Exit to the City’ above the benches. It is one of the first direction signs in the Moscow metro.

Western ground pavilion

The hall looks rather strange. Two buildings, from which one is oval while the other is square, are connected by a passageway. The deconstructivist aesthetics of the hall has been formed occasionally. Dushkin initially projected that the oval escalator hall would be one of the internal rooms of the Academic movie theatre. According to the project, spectators appeared immediately from the metro to the movie theatre foyer by escalator. However the largest movie theatre in the USSR has not been built. Hence a square hall whose portal was decorated with columns was attached to the oval hall.

Eastern ground pavilion

The portal of the hall was built into the line of existing buildings. It consists of two (entrance and exit) low arches. Going through them, one appears in a huge two coloured semi-circular hall faced with greyish-white marble. A striking mosaic, which consists of red flags, the coat of arms of the USSR, and years of 1917-1947, is located on the eastern wall, opposite the arch of the escalator tunnel. Words of one of the first versions of the USSR hymn are carved with gold on the right and left of the mosaic. There are oak desks under the mosaic and benches along the wall. Sitting on them, it is comfortable to observe the giant 24-branch chandelier suspended over the escalator arch and unique column-shaped torchieres of two human heights on marble pedestals on the right and left of the escalators. The hall staggers with its barbarian pomp and overwhelms by its gigantism so much that passengers often do not notice small but very good looking details of the decoration, e.g., an oak carved flower on the door of the office of senior cashier or intricate bronze tracery on the torchieres.

Text from Moscow Metro 1935-2005, p36-39