Kazansky railway station

The Kazan station (Russian Казанский вокзал / Kasanski Vokzal ) is one of eight railway stations in Moscow. It lies on the Komsomolskaya Square, in close proximity to Yaroslavl and Leningrad railway station, and is still one of the biggest stations in the Russian capital. Conceived by Alexei Shchusev reception building of the Kazan railway station is also a valuable monument of early Soviet architecture.

History

The forerunner of today's Kazan railway station was built in 1862 with the commissioning of the railway line from Moscow to Ryazan, which was scheduled for a separate railway terminus. At that time, the building of the new " Ryazan railway station " no more than a wooden house, even right platforms it did not yet exist, so that the entry and exit into and out of the train for passengers was a fairly arduous affair. Two years later, the temporary wooden terminal building was demolished and in its place erected a stone station building. This was the future Kazan train station to the third station building at the former Kalantschowskaja Square, which became famous later as the " Square of the Three Stations ".

But the new station building did not meet the growing demands; for one, it was not very architecturally attractive, secondly, the waiting room was too small and uncomfortable. At the latest with the extension of the Moscow - Ryazan railway line further east to the Volga city of Kazan, which also name-giving was now for the station, and the associated significant increase in ridership urgently needed a new reception building. However, there should be several decades until the present building took his place.

First, a number of expansion projects for the old buildings were from the Department of Transportation rejected due to various deficiencies, and also a 1907 project submitted for a new construction of the building had to be rejected. After must be expanded in 1910 which is now bursting at the seams old building had a makeshift, a new competition was announced that finally won the renowned architect Alexei Shchusev. The end of 1913, after Schtschussews project had been approved by the Department of Transportation, began with the construction of the new station, whose completion was scheduled for November 1, 1916; the old building was a few months earlier canceled and moved to a two-storey temporary. Ultimately, however, was also scheduled for completion in 1916, nothing, because in the meantime the First World War broke out, a little later followed the October Revolution and the Civil War. After all the railways of Russia, including the Moscow -Kazan route, had been nationalized in 1918, to the railway station construction work resumed, but the extremely slow progress were due to lack of building materials.

Finally, in June 1922 it was possible to complete the waiting rooms of the future station, after which the temporary station building was demolished and the partly finished Kazan station had received the first passengers. The full completion of the station was only in the year 1940 1923 on the facade of the large clock was installed, which was provided in Schtschussews project from the beginning - she graced the station facade until 1941, when it was destroyed during the German air raids. ; only in the 1970s, has prepared the station clock back to its original place.

Even otherwise, a number of expansions and renovations were made ​​to the building in the time after its final completion. In the 1950s, it built an additional underground terminal building for local transport, which also included a direct access to the subway, and in 1990 created more waiting rooms, and a new roof over the platforms. Finally, the station complex in 1997 has been restored; this created two new extensions to the building that had been envisaged in the original Shchusev project, but not built until then.

Architecture

The Kazan station is rightly regarded as one of the most remarkable railway buildings in the Russian capital. The building complex, at the same time one of the most famous Shchusev - buildings, was held in the so-called neo-Russian style; Shchusev wanted to integrate the building into the existing architectural landscape of the station square harmonious and at the same time emphasize individual style elements of the new station. Characteristic of the Kazan station, the long-drawn row of buildings, some of which pointed towers of different heights, as well as a bell tower with a clock and a key element is the entrance building contains with arcade -like gate structure. Here Shchusev was mainly inspired by ancient Russian architecture that adorned among other cities such as Nizhny Novgorod, Astrakhan or Ryazan, but also an allusion to the Kazan Sujumbike tower is visible. Even the interior of the station halls is often adorned by paintings of his time by renowned artists such as Alexander Benois, Boris Kustodiev, Zinaida Serebrjakowa or Ivan Bilibin.

The Kazan station today

Also, traffic is technically the Kazan Railway Station one of the most important components of the Moscow transport hub. Every day he is approached by about 70 pairs of trains over long distances as well as 200 pairs of trains for regional services (so-called " Elektritschkas "). The train station has trains not only to Kazan and other Volga provinces, but also in the Urals, Siberia and parts of Central Asia. With local trains that depart from the Kazan railway station, it inter alia to Bykowo Moscow airport as well as in cities like Kolomna or Ryazan. As well as the two adjacent stations on the Komsomolskaya Square, consists of the Kazan station from a direct interchange with Metro station Komsomolskaya line 1 and the ring line.

Persons trains from Kazan station consist by:

• Eagle
• Astana
• Barnaul
• Bereschtschino
• Bishkek
• Bugulma
• Dimitrovgrad
• Dushanbe
• Izhevsk
• Yekaterinburg
• Yoshkar -Ola
• Kazan
• Kislovodsk
• Kuljab
• Kurgan
• Makhachkala
• Magnitogorsk
• Naberezhnye Chelny
• Nalchik
• Nizhny Novgorod
• Novokuznetsk
• Novorossiysk
• Omsk
• Orenburg
• Orsk
• Pensa
• Petropavlovsk
• Karaganda
• Ryazan
• Rostov-on- Don
• Samara
• Sergatsch
• Sewerobaikalsk
• Saransk
• Tashkent
• Tyumen
• Tolyatti
• Cheboksary
• Chelyabinsk
• Tynda
• Ufa
• Vladikavkaz