Narvskaya

Narvskaya metro station is the first and only one in Leningrad that has a track development (a turnaround dead end), but which is not the final one and does not have a transfer to another line. Nowadays, this revolving dead end in the southern neck of the station has become the starting point of the connecting branch to the station Putilovskaya (under construction) 6th Brown Line. It is also assumed that in the future the station "Narvskaya" will become an interchange on the Ring line 7 (projected).

In the initial period of the development of the Leningrad metro, it was supposed to direct part of the trains from the center only to the Narvskaya station, because there were no such densely populated residential areas on the outskirts yet. At a number of stations, light boards hung above the platforms with the inscription "The train goes to the station", where the Narvskaya station was listed among the possible end stations. Now the reverse dead end "Narvskoy" is used very rarely, trains enter it only at night parking.

The station is named after its location - near the former Narva outpost, right next to the Narva Triumphal Gate. It is certainly one of the top 10 most beautiful stations in Saint-Petersburg and is also the most "Stalinist" of all, which even gave rise to a legend about its supposedly project name - "Stalinskaya". The documents firmly refute this legend, this version was not even considered, but people like to tell each other tall tales :)

The theme of the station's design is the labor valor of the Soviet people. The side walls of the pylons of the central underground hall are decorated with high reliefs depicting people of different professions. In total, there are 48 panels with 12 recurring plots, among which you can even find the architects themselves who built this station ;)

Let's list it.

The first high relief to the right of the entrance to the station depicts builders - two men and a woman, with a man holding a mock-up of the Narvskaya station lobby in his hands. These are architects Goldgor, Speransky (with a mock-up in his hands) and engineer Ivanova (photo on the left). But the casters on the neighboring high relief look no less cool (photo on the right).

Shipbuilders (left) and doctors (right) are not forgotten either.

And the sailors and soldiers were not forgotten. Sailors in the photo on the left, Soviet soldiers, defenders of the Fatherland in the photo on the right.

There are even breeders (pictured left) and artists (right).

Schoolchildren (schoolgirls) in the photo on the left, textile workers in the photo on the right.

Well, there were collective farmers on the left, and metro builders on the right.

The track walls and pylons are lined with white marble. The floor of the central hall is lined with red granite and framed with black and white ornaments. The floor on the side platforms was also once asphalt, but replaced with gray granite. There are very beautiful chandeliers and doors in the track wall.

There are also a great many small details at this station with very great attention to detail. Take at least the metal flowers at the ends of the benches. They did not save on aesthetics under Stalin.

The station has very beautiful lighting, no matter what angle you look at.

An inclined passage with three escalators is located at the northern end of the station. Hermetic door - type "guillotine". At the end of 2000, there was an attempt to replace escalators with new ones of a different design, with the installation of four escalators instead of the current three, but modern engineers are unable to create a reliable design, the expertise is lost. So there are only three escalators left.

Speaking of the escalator. If you go upstairs, you can see a very interesting pavilion of the station and also with a bunch of small interesting details.

During the day, the station pavilion is slightly lost against the background of the surrounding buildings and especially the Narva Gate itself, but at night it stands out brightly with illumination.

Unlike many other metro stations, history has preserved for us photos of this place in different periods of time. Without being distracted by the Narva Gate itself, and this is a separate story of the border of Saint-Petersburg in 1814, just look at the place of the future metro station.

Here are pictures of the early 1920s and 1931, respectively. It is clearly visible that at the site of the future metro station there is first an incomprehensible small hut, and later a large beautiful square. In the middle and right photo, this is the square on the left side of the frame, to the left of the Narva Gate.

Then, in the already post-war pictures, the station lobby appears and begins to grow on the site of the square.

It's great that we can look through the eyes of our ancestors differently at what is familiar to us from birth and what we often do not notice at all.

But back to the lobby. The wall of the cash register was supposed to be decorated with a quote from Stalin, which is incredibly relevant today:

It is possible that Russia will be the country paving the way to socialism… It is necessary to discard the outdated idea that only Europe can show us the way.

But, alas, Khrushchev's obscurantism deprived us of this quote. You see, and Nazi Ukraine would not have happened. A sad joke.

As already shown in the photos above, there are many beautiful details in the lobby. But the central place is occupied by the panel "Glory to labor!" above the escalator.

According to the original plan, Stalin himself should have been in the center of the composition (photo on the left). But since it was necessary to get rid of Stalin urgently for the sake of the new conjuncture, a worker with a flag was stuck in the center of the composition instead of Stalin (photo on the right). And in order not to offend the Great Helmsman too much, the worker was moved one step back. Therefore, a physically felt void appeared in the center of the panel.

As at all stations of the first stage of the Leningrad metro, when the escalator exits to the surface, the escalator handrails here move not along a smooth curve, but along a two-step polyline.

However, let's go back down. There, in the main hall, Stalin was also not forgotten.

At the end of the main hall there was originally a panel "Stalin on the podium", made on the basis of the painting of the same name. And, interestingly, Stalin is on the panel with a book (photo on the left), and in the original painting with a glass (on the right). Obviously, with the death of the Great Helmsman, the problem of alcoholism began to progress rapidly and cause corresponding deviations of perception.

But in 1961, after the XXII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the panel was fenced off from the central hall by a smooth marble wall. Behind this wall, a meeting room was placed, and then a linear point for instructing and resting the drivers of the metrodepot "Avtovo".

The panel itself was destroyed by jackhammers and simply thrown away. Several fragments of it can be seen today in the interactive history center of the metro at the metro station Primorskaya.

In general, it is a very beautiful, worthy and well-deserved station.