The Tsar Railway Station

Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Monuments of history and culture
The Emperor Own Railway branch line and a wooden railway station pavilion, intended for supplying an imperial residence in the Alexander Palace, was constructed in 1895 for safeguarding Emperor Nicholas II. The railway station, to which the road from the Alexander Palace was built across the park, was located to the north of the Alexander Palace on the former agricultural lands of the village of Bolshoye Kuzmino. The railway lines from it run to the Warsaw (Varshavsky) and Tsarskoye Selo railway lines. All building work on constructing the Own railway branch line was done by the Moscow-Vindavo-Rybinsk Railway Company. In 1911 the first railway station pavilion was burned and its place in 1912 the new building in the Old Russian architecture style was built to the design of the architect V.A. Pokrovsky. The Russian state symbolism – double-headed eagles, cities’ coats of arms, heraldic plots, Old Russians ornamental patterns – were used in decoration of the railway station. Sketches of the interiors’ paintings were done by the artist M.I. Kurilko. The design of the Emperor Railway Station in Saint Petersburg, erected in 1902 by the architect S.A. Brzhozovsky, exerted influence on the planning and construction design. The arch porch with hipped roof, decorated in the foundation with two rows of kokoshniks and crowned with the state double-headed eagle, stood out against the main façade appearance. The main interiors were stylized like chambers with ponderous stone vaults. In the center there was an entrance hall, the Tsar’s hall from the southern side and the Retinue hall from the northern side were intended for the Head of the State and his retinue. A metal landing-stage over the platform and railway tracks , used for receiving trains (it was dismantled in the 1920s), adjoined to the eastern façade of the railway station. The attic under the high roof was equipped with a system of forced-air heating. The rich decoration of facades of facades and interiors corresponded to the ceremonial and representative destination of the railway station, being a model of synthesis of architecture, monumental painting and arts and crafts, in which the Old Russian architecture forms of the 17th century were well harmonized with building technologies and materials which were typical for the Modernist style epoch. Here official representatives of foreign states, visited the emperor residence in Tsarskoye Selo, were met, the President of France R. Poincare visited the residence in 1914. During 1914 – 1917 in the period of World War I the Tsar’s pavilion was used for delivering wounded soldiers into a hospital opened in the Fiodorovsky Gorodok. In 1918 the Tsar’s pavilion was named the Uritsky pavilion and used firstly as a dormitory for workers of the Railway Repair and Engineering Works, opened on the base of an imperial railway depot (“Remputmash”), then a dormitory of the Agriculture Institute was placed here, it was settled apart in the 1970s. The building has survived until the present time (35b Akademichesky Prospekt), but now it is in the emergency state. Semenova Galina Victorovna
Brzhovsky Stanislav Antonovich
Nicholas II, Emperor
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Pokrovsky Vladimir Alexandrovich
Akademichesky Avenue/Pushkin, town
Alexander Palace (Pushkin)
Tsarskoselskaya Railway
Feodorovsky Settlement (Pushkin Town)