The Kropotkinskaya metro station is one of the oldest in the Moscow metro. It was opened in 1935. The pavilions of the capital's subway, built in the pre-war period, resemble a museum. On t At some stations you can see sculptures, various decorative elements. They are real works of architectural art and, along with those located on the surface of the city, are part of the cultural heritage of the Soviet people. The Kropotkinskaya metro station was created according to the project, which was noted at exhibitions in Brussels and Paris.
architectural features
The Kropotkinskaya metro station was designed in the Stalinist Empire style, which is characterized by monumentality, baroque and late classicism elements. Greatness is given by lamps located in the capitals of high columns. But over its long history, the Kropotkinskaya metro station, of course, has somewhat changed its appearance. First, the walls were decorated with faience tiles. Then the Ural marble replaced it. The floor of the pavilion is now covered with red and gray granite slabs. But until the end of the 50s, the flooring was asphalt. "Kropotkinskaya" refers to shallow stations (only 13 meters from the surface).
Story
The Kropotkinskaya metro station changed not only its appearance, but also its name. How many exits are there? Two. And one of them goes to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. In 1931, the old building was demolished, and in its place, according to the plan of the atheist city governors, the construction of the Palace of Soviets was to begin. This building could become a grandiose monument of the Soviet era. But that did not happen. The war has begun. And the station "Kropotkinskaya" for more than ten years was called the "Palace of Soviets" in honor of the building, which Muscovites were not destined to see.
Pool "Moscow"
After the war, for many years next to this station it was possible to see the foundation pit. For a number of reasons, it was decided not to resume the construction of the "Palace of Soviets". But what to do with the pit? In its place, a swimming pool was built, which became the largest in Moscow. It existed until 1994. So it was called - "Moscow".
The pool was open even in winter. The water temperature was maintained by means of artificial heating. It's easy to imagine what vapors hovered over the pool, especially during the winter months. This was especially dissatisfied with the workers of the Pushkin Museum, which will be discussed below. And in the early nineties, when true believers replaced atheists in power, they decided to remove the pool and build a temple in its place.
Pushkin Museum
This cultural and historical complex includes five buildings. The museum was opened more than a hundred years ago on the initiative of the art historian Ivan Tsvetaev.
The museum's collection includes works from antiquity to the 20th century. The museum is especially proud of the works of French expressionists. Among the paintings of painters of the twentieth century - the work of Renoir, Monet, Degas, Van Gogh. Most of these works were confiscated from wealthy merchants Morozov and Shchukin in the 1920s.
What other sights are close to Kropotkinskaya metro station? A photo of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior is presented below. It is worth briefly telling the history of this building and the structure that was once located on the site
Temple history
It was opened in memory of the Russian soldiers who died in 1812. Construction was completed fifty years after the end of World War II. Coronations and other solemn events have been held in this temple for fifty years. With the advent of the new government, the temple was closed and then blown up. Further history is outlined above. One has only to add that the construction of the new temple was completed in 2002, and today it is one of the main attractions located in the vicinity of the Kropotkinskaya station.
St.m. Kropotkinskaya. June 25th, 2015
So today we have a station built as part of the first stage. Metro station "Kropotkinskaya" This is where the Moscow metro began. This year, the metro in Moscow celebrated its anniversary. 80 years ago, the first "red line" was opened for passengers. Kropotkinskaya is named after the same prince Kropotkin, theorist of anarchism. It is surprising that the station was then renamed in honor of Kropotkin, and it is surprising that it has not been renamed now. I think that this is not bad, it is good, let the historical name remain. Let's go and have a look at the classic Sokolnicheskaya line station.
Let's go back to the archives. It's great that photos from the construction of the stations of the first stage have been preserved. Now you can easily find photos from any station under construction now. There are a lot of photographs, but there are not so many archival photos from the construction of stations in the 30s and 40s, and they are valuable for that.
Such photos are pleasing because the builders are without helmets. Very harsh builders, they are not afraid of anything.
Here the pavilion is almost completed, only there are no decorative bars on the windows and the name of the station on the arch. Pay attention to the name of the station, which is written on the photo card. "Kropotkin Gate" is the working name of the station.
The same period, but night version. Lamps are installed in the caissons of the arch, and moreover, lamps are also installed on top of the roof of the arch. Now there are no lamps in the caissons.
And what a beautiful view. No tents around the pavilion - beauty.
And here is a photo after opening. An inscription appeared on the arch, metal bars appeared on the windows and doors.
Then, for some reason, the inscription was moved above the arch, and the inscriptions "metro" on the main facade were replaced with large letters "M".
Here is a gorgeous photo from above.
Here is another archival photo, even before the opening of the station - huge letters "M" from the side of Gogolevsky Boulevard.
War years. Sale of firewood near the metro station Kropotkinskaya. By the way, I did not find any information whether the pavilion was damaged during the war or whether this fate did not befall it.
Another wonderful photo. Finishing work is underway in the underground lobby.
And now everything is ready. Checkout room.
Here is a large, but unfortunately not clear (since this is a freeze frame) metro map. "Palace of the Soviets" - it is emphasized, well, so as not to get confused in such a branched scheme. =)
Transition from the ticket office to the station. Pay attention - the columns are round, now they are lined with stone and have a broken shape in plan. There are tiles on the walls, but they don't look like they are now. But the tiles on the floor have now been replaced, as well as round lamps, they are now different.
Station hall decoration.
Here is a very interesting photo. Here, firstly, the old name of the station is on the track wall, and secondly, the process of washing the walls itself is interesting. I wonder if this is some kind of planned work or preparation of the station for the opening. Here, by the way, you can see that the floor at the station is asphalt.
Class. There were tubs of palm trees on the stairs.
There are trash cans at the station, everything is cultural.
Another photo of the station hall.
And here is the layout of the lobby of Kropotkinskaya in the metro at the metro station. "Sports"
1. Indeed, the ground pavilion of the metro station "Kropotkinskaya", standing at the beginning of Gogolevsky Boulevard, looks very cool. A work of art in itself. At night it has amazing lighting. Perhaps in the evening the pavilion looks as impressive as possible.
2. In fact, these are two pavilions - one for the exit ...
3. ... another for the entrance. Above the doors (the doors are no longer authentic) there is a lattice with stylized letters "MM" - the Moscow Metro. We see the same spelling on the pavilion of the metro station. "Borovitskaya". It looks like the emblem of the German "Maybach" =)
4. On the side is a plate with data on the station, and another plate. Ugly tablets and granite graveyard slabs are installed by the glorified on the site of the once removed religious buildings. Who allowed them to disfigure the facade of an architectural monument is not clear at all. That's horrible.
5. The two pavilions are connected by an arch with a coffered ceiling, in which, as we saw, lamps were originally located. Very effective. The pavilion does not interfere with the through passage to the boulevard - very well thought out. The project of the station was awarded the Grand Prix in Paris at the World Exhibition in 1937, and at the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958. The project also received the Stalin Prize.
6. We go down. Everything is rather ascetic here.
7. Checkout counter. To the right is a nook with cash register windows.
8. A long corridor from the cash register towards the validators. It is strange that boxes with occasions were laid between the lamps on the ceiling. After all, lamps were originally hanging there, why was it also impossible to carry out hidden wiring?
9. Descent to the station. The station lies 13 meters below ground level.
10. No pretentious design of the underground lobby.
11. Dushkin, the architect of the station, decided to turn to the ancient Egyptian architectural traditions in his project. Indeed, there is something like that. However, there is only a form, there is no rich decoration and painting here. In general, pompous decoration did not appear in the Moscow metro immediately. The peak of expensive and rich decor fell on the construction of underground palaces on the Ring Line.
12. The station looks rather austere. There is no pomposity of the stations of the Circle Line. However, the station looks very spacious. That's how it was intended. After all, the station "Palace of the Soviets" was supposed to become an underground gate to the Palace of Soviets under construction. The palace eventually disappeared. Instead, the demolished HHS was restored. An interesting combination.
13. Illumination comes from the wide sockets of the columns. The floor is lined with gray and red granite slabs in a checkerboard pattern.
14. Such are the columns, turning into stars on the ceiling.
15. Let's take another look at the station. In some places at the station there are square, and not multifaceted columns - it's strange somehow. It can be seen that there is a deformation seam along one pair of columns, but still I don’t think that this is the reason.
16. Everyone, let's move on ...
P.S.
All archive photos found on a wonderful site
The station was opened on May 15, 1935 as part of the first launch section of the Moscow Metro - Sokolniki -. with a branch "Okhotny Ryad" -. It was named after the former Kropotkinsky Gate Square and Kropotkinskaya Street (now Prechistensky Gate Square and Prechistenskaya Street), named after Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin, a geographer and traveler, an anarchist theorist, who was born in this area.
Photo from oldmos.ru
Until October 8, 1957 it was called the "Palace of the Soviets". Next to the station, on the site of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior demolished in 1931, it was planned to erect a grandiose Palace of Soviets. The metro station hall was conceived as an underground vestibule of the Palace. The construction of the Palace began in 1939, but before the war it was interrupted, and during the war the metal frame of the already built seven floors of the building was used for the manufacture of anti-tank hedgehogs. The project was never carried out. Later, an abandoned pit dug for the Palace was used for the Moskva swimming pool, opened in 1960. In 1994, it was decided to recreate the temple (restored and consecrated by the beginning of 2000), the pool was closed. The design name of the station is Kropotkin Gates.
On December 5, 2008, on the day of the death of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, the public movement "Return" proposed to rename the station to "Patriarchskaya".
There is a ground vestibule of a semicircular shape in the form of an arch, designed by the architect S. M. Kravets and located at the beginning of Gogolevsky Boulevard. Through it, access to Gogolevsky Boulevard, Prechistensky Gate Square and Gagarinsky Lane is carried out. In 1997, along with the Temple, a northern exit was opened leading to the underground passages (architect A.K. Ryzhkov) - to Volkhonka Street, All Saints Lane, and to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior itself.
Photo from oldmos.ru
The project of the station was awarded the Grand Prix at international exhibitions in Paris (1937) and Brussels (1935), the Stalin Prize for architecture and construction (1941).
The design of the station is a shallow three-span column (laying depth - 13 m). It was built according to a special project from monolithic concrete. Architects - A.N. Dushkin, Ya.G. Lichtenberg. Lobby architects: western - S.M. Kravets, eastern - A.K. Ryzhkov (1961). Design engineer - N.A. Kabanov. The station is designed for a large passenger flow, but at present its huge hall is poorly loaded.
Photo from oldmos.ru
The ten-sided columns of the station and the track walls are finished with grayish-white Ural marble "koelga" (until the end of the 1950s, the track walls were covered with faience tiles). The floor is staggered pink and gray granite (originally it was asphalt). The lamps are built into the capitals in the upper parts of the columns. The walls of the cash hall are lined with marblit.
Photo from oldmos.ru
In the future, it is planned to build a transition from the center of the hall to the future Volkhonka station of the Kalininsko-Solntsevskaya line.
Addition from botsman_m (see comments): 34 10-sided pylons alternate with more massive quadrangular pylons - they stand in places of the strongest soil pressure (there are temperature seams), where it was necessary to strengthen the supports, at the same time, such an interruption creates a certain rhythmic pattern.
On the night of May 16, 2010, a night concert of the Kremlin Chamber Orchestra took place. From 1:30 until the end of the concert, the Sokolniki Retro Train and Akvarel were placed at the station, the Aquarelle Art Gallery was open before the concert and closed due to the publication of a kind of “sneeze”, and the Sokolniki Retro Train served as a mezzanine.
Retro train "Sokolniki" at the station "Kropotkinskaya". Stylized as the first train of the Moscow metro, which consisted of type A cars. Created by special order at the manufacturing plant (Metrovagonmash), new cars were used. It is a train of cars of model 81-717 with a modified front part of the head cars, painted in colors typical for the metro of the 1930s.
The Kropotkinskaya metro station of the Sokolnicheskaya line of the Moscow metro was solemnly opened in 1935 on May 15 and was part of the first section of the Moscow metro, which then stretched from Sokolniki to Park Kultury.
The project name - "Kropotkin Gates" - was given in consonance with the nearby street of the same name (now -). In connection with the plans to build the Palace of Soviets on the site of the blown up one, the metro station was called until 1957 the "Palace of Soviets".
Photo 1. The lobby of the metro station "Kropotkinskaya" Sokolnicheskaya line
The metro station was built according to a special project. Monolithic concrete was used as the main material. Design and type: shallow, three-span column.
The design of the Kropotkinskaya metro station was carried out by leading architects and engineers of the Soviet Union, including Alexei Nikolaevich Dushkin, Yakov Grigorievich Lichtenberg, Samuil Mironovich Kravets and others.
The originality of the project was recognized not only in the country, but also abroad. So, he was noted at the Paris and Brussels international exhibitions of 1937 and 1958, and at the latter he received the "Grand Prix". In addition, in 1941 the creators were awarded the Stalin Prize of the second degree. The object was declared an architectural monument in 1979.
Construction history and development
Initially, the project of the Kropotkinskaya metro station was given special importance, associated with the decision to build a grand Palace of Soviets on Volkhonka.
The designers proceeded from the fact that the visit of this building by numerous delegations from the country and from abroad would require increased capacity from the station. It is this circumstance that led to an increase in the width of the platform, which exceeds by several meters similar platforms of other stations of the first stage of the Moscow Metro.
The decor of the Kropotkinskaya station, at the beginning of its operation, used tubs with palm trees, which were installed in the aisle between the ticket office and the lobby.
Unfortunately, due to the lack of light, the plants withered and did not develop, besides, huge tubs were an obstacle to the movement of passengers. All this was the reason for the dismantling of this design element.
The decorative element of the station are columns with capitals arranged at the top. They are located in two rows and lined with noble gray-white marble.
It is worth noting that the capitals themselves were originally made of gypsum, having mounted lamps hidden from the eyes along the bottom. The original solution for lighting, visually increasing the volume of the hall, was developed by the architect Dushkin.
To achieve the full effect, marble capitals were needed, but due to lack of time, they had to be abandoned. They were completed as such only in 1961 during the first reconstruction of the Kropotkinskaya metro station, when they were working on the second exit.
In the same year, 1961, slabs of Ural marble were installed on the track walls, replacing the previous facing of faience tiles, and the floor of the platform was laid out with gray and pink granite.
