Subway

Categories / City Services/Transportation/Municipal Transportation
SUBWAY. First subway projects in St. Petersburg date back to the late 19th century. In 1889 the Administrative Committee of the Baltic Railway came up with a project of a subway line connecting Baltiysky and Finlyandsky Railway Stations. In 1901 engineer V.N. Pechkovsky suggested to build an elevated-and-underground railway running from Kazan Cathedral to Baltiysky and Varshavsky Railway Stations. The same year engineer P.I. Balinsky devised a subway project for St. Petersburg, comprised of six lines (including 2 loop lines) with the overall track length of 95.5 versts (1 verst = 3,500 ft.). A number of subway projects in St. Petersburg were suggested by engineers G. A. Girshson and N.O. Kulzhinsky (both in 1902), А.N. Gorchakov (1909), F.E. Enakiev (1912), G.O. Graftio (1917), as well as by the City Railway Administration Department (1917). All of them had not been put into practice for various reasons, predominantly financial. After the capital moved to Moscow in 1918 and on the grounds of economic hardship the issue was again postponed and brought up only in 1938 on the initiative of A.N. Kosygin. In January of 1941, the Soviet of People's Commissars of the USSR and the All-Russia Communist Party Central Committee adopted a resolution on commencement of subway construction in Leningrad. The Construction Directorate No.5 of the People’s Commissariat of Railways was founded on 21 January 1941 (Lenmetrostroy since April 1946). The first stage of the subway project with 12 stations running from Avtovo City District to Baburina Lane (Smolyachkova Street since 1952) was due to be opened by November 1942. After the start of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45 the subway construction works in Leningrad were interrupted and resumed in November 1945. The pre-war project had been adjusted (the number of stations of the 1st line was reduced, and the routing was changed). On 15 November 1955 regular train service commenced between Avtovo and Ploschad Vosstaniya metro stations. Pushkinskaya metro station was opened later on 30 April 1956 due to complications during the construction of the escalator tunnel. The construction projects for all the stations of the 1st line were selected in competition. A total of123 projects were submitted to the special panel. The stations are designed in sumptuous and solemn style and are recognized as outstanding examples of Soviet architecture. Their decoration required about 22,000 square metres of marble and 10,000 square metres of granite. The stations are illuminated by about 700 lamps, floor-lamps, sconces and chandeliers, made of bronze, crystal, and art glass. Architects I. I. Fomin, S.B. Speransky, A.K. Andreev, G.N. Buldakov, A.V. Zhuk, A.I. Pribulsky, L.M. Polyakov, E.A. Levinson, E.M. Rappoport and others designed in co-authorship the stations of the 1st stage of the project and the subsequent stages. There are many metro stations notable for their architectural and decorative design, such as Avtovo, with 16 of 46 columns faced with relief pressed glass, Ploschad Vosstaniya with pylons adorned with bronze bas-reliefs (one of them contains the only surviving and available for public view sculptural image of I.V. Stalin in St. Petersburg), Pushkinskaya, decorated with original floor-lamps with stylized spears and shields and a picturesque panel-painting by М.А. Engelke, Krestovsky Island, whose decorative pattern used mirrors for the first time in Russian subway construction practise; also worth mentioning is a 2-tier Sportivnaya metro station. Pushkinskaya and Chernaya Rechka metro stations there boast images of A.S. Pushkin by sculptor M.K. Anikushin; the ground pavilion of Mayakovskaya metro station has a sculpture of V.V. Mayakovsky by М.Т. Litovchenko; at the entrance of Chkalovskaya metro station there stands the bust of V.P. Chkalov by sculptors А.S. Markin and V.D. Sveshnikov. In 1955-92 the subway was named after V. I. Lenin. In 1990, the subway was acquired by the city and is now a unitary municipal enterprise. In the 1990s a number of stations were renamed (Komsomolskaya - into Devyatkino, Ploschad Mira - into Sennaya Ploschad, Krasnogvardeyskaya - into Novocherkasskaya), and some of the stations were reconstructed (Sennaya Ploschad and Vladimirskaya). By the year 2002 there were four subway lines in operation in St. Petersburg with the total length of 98.6 km and 58 stations with 64 pavilions. More than 1,300 train cars carry about 2.23 million passengers a day at an average speed of 38.8 km/h. The section between Ploschad Alexander Nevsky and Elizarovskaya metro stations is the longest with 4.7 km, while the shortest one is between Technologichesky Institute and Pushkinskaya (0.8 km); the average distance between stations is 1.77 km, the deepest tunnel lies at 110 m. The total number of escalators is 214, the longest one extending to 101 m (Ploschad Lenina metro station). There are five service depots (Avtovo, Moskovskoe, Nevskoe, Severnoe, and Vyborgskoe) and one repair depot called Dachnoe. According to the construction type the metro stations are divided into pier stations with two vaults over the track and platforms and 1 above the central station vestibule, separated from the platforms by 2 rows of piers supporting the vaults (e.g. Narvskaya metro station); columnar stations (17 of those), where the underground vestibule vault rests on two rows of columns separating the side platforms (e.g. Dostoevskaya metro station); one-vault stations (15), arched with one vault resting on the side walls (typical for the stations built in the 1980-90s, e.g Ploschad Muzhestva; horizontal elevator type stations (10) without side platforms and with automatic sliding doors, opening into the track tunnels (e.g. Vasileostrovskaya metro station; in the USSR this station type was designed only in Leningrad, however its maintenance proved to be inefficient despite low-cost construction; and on the ground (elevated) stations (three of those), linked to wayside stops of commuter trains with roofed vestibules and tow side platforms (e.g. Kupchino). Most stations and tunnels of St. Petersburg subway are laid deep underground in the Cambrian clay mass (only three stations lie higher up, they are Avtovo, Leninsky Prospect and Prospect Veteranov). The hydro-geological conditions determined the extreme complexity, labour intensity and high cost of St. Petersburg subway construction. In 1972 during construction of the strip between Lesnaya and Ploschad Muzhestva metro stations, soft ground burst into the tunnel. Freezing of the ground enabled to complete the construction by 1975. However in 1995 an emergency situation was triggered anew, leading to flooding of both tunnels. Starting in 1998 began the construction of new tunnels at the site. In 2002, City Hall approved the subway development program up to the year 2015. The plan provides for building of Komendantsky Prospect and Admiralteyskaya metro stations, as well as additional vestibules in Baltiyskaya and Sportivnaya metro stations. A stage by stage construction and deployment of the line with 6 stations running from Sennaya Ploschad to Bukharestskaya Street has been planned for the near future, another project for construction of a semi-loop from Vasileostrovskaya metro station to Vyborgskaya metro station, and a line with 4 stations running from Moskovskie Vorota metro station to Marshala Govorova Street and a section from Sennaya Ploschad to Theatre Square are under development. The St. Petersburg Subway Newspaper has been published since 1962.

References: Метрополитен Ленинграда - Петербурга: Страницы истории. СПб., 1995; Метрополитен Северной столицы, 1955-1995. СПб., 1995.

А. I. Razdorsky. Andreev Alexander Kuzmich
Anikushin Mikhail Konstantinovich
Balinsky Peter Ivanovich
Buldakov Gennady Nikanorovich
Chkalov Valery Pavlovich
Enakiev F.E.
Engelke Maria Alexandrovna
Fomin Igor Ivanovich
Gorchakov A.N.
Graftio Heinrich Osipovich
Hirschson Heinrich Antonovich
Kosygin Alexey Nikolaevich
Kulzhinsky N.O.
Lenin (real name Ulyanov) Vladimir Ilyich
Levinson Evgeny Adolfovich
Litovchenko Maria Timofeevna
Markin A.S.
Mayakovsky Vladimir Vladimirovich
Pechkovsky V.N.
Polyakov Leonid Mikhailovich
Pribulsky Anatoly Isaakovich
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Rappoport Evgeny Mikhailovich
Speransky Sergey Borisovich
Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) Iosif Vissarionovich
Sveshnikov Valentin Dmitrievich
Zhuk Alexander Vladimirovich
Marshala Kazakova St./Saint Petersburg, city
Smolyachkova St./Saint Petersburg, city
Teatralnaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
Автово
Метрополитен Северной Столицы, 1955-1995. СПб., 1995
Метрополитен Ленинграда - Петербурга: Страницы истории. СПб., 1995 Baltiysky Railway Station
Finlyandsky Railway Station
Kazan Cathedral
Varshavsky Railway Station
1941
1955
1995