Moskovsky Rail Terminal

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For other uses, see Moskovsky.

View on the terminal from Uprising Square

Moskovsky Rail Terminal (Russian: Моско́вский вокза́л, Moskovsky vokzal), also called Moscow Rail Terminal, with an easily recognizable Neo-Renaissance frontage on Nevsky Prospekt and Uprising Square, is the main line terminal station in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is a terminus for the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway and other lines running from Central and South Russia, Siberia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea.

The oldest preserved station in the city, it was erected in 1851 to a design by Konstantin Thon. As Nicholas I of Russia was the reigning monarch and the greatest patron of railway construction in the realm, the station was named Nicholaevsky after him. Rechristened Oktyabrsky to memorialize the October Revolution in 1924, the station was not given its present name until 1930.

The vaulted hall

Although large "Venetian" windows, two floors of Corinthian columns and a two-storey clocktower at the centre explicitly reference Italian Renaissance architecture, the building incorporates other features from a variety of periods and countries. A twin train station, currently known as the Leningradsky Rail Terminal, was built to Thon's design at the other end of the railway, in Moscow.

While Thon's facade remains fundamentally intact to this day, the station was expanded in 1869-79 and 1912. It was completely redeveloped internally in 1950-52 and 1967. A bronze bust of Peter the Great in the main vestibule was unveiled in 1993. The terminal is served by the Mayakovskaya and Vosstaniya Square stations of the Saint Petersburg Metro, with both stations linked to the terminal by an underground corridor.