January 9th Garden (not built)

This object in Internet: Wikimapia, карта Yandex
Opened: construction cancelled in May 1941
Entrance to the station: lobby in the corner building opposite the Garden on January 9th

To tell about the never-built station, the ghost station "Garden of January 9th", you need to curtsy towards the time when the metro began to be designed and built in the city of Lenin.

It was right after the adoption of the magnificent general plan of 1935, where the entire development of Leningrad was supposed to be south of the Neva (diagram on the left). Fragments of this master plan, acquired before the war, can still be found in Saint-Petersburg today. Strange diagonal streets, wide boulevards, yes... And it is in the context of this pre-war general plan that we need to consider the project of the first stage of the Leningrad metro (the right scheme).

Diagram of the first stage of the Leningrad metro

There is a legend that the war prevented the implementation of the original metro project. And that it was the post-war devastation that did not allow the Sad metro station to be born on January 9th. But that's not true.

Yes, during the war, the unfinished workings and mines of the metro had to be flooded and after the war, construction began anew. Everything is so. But the very decision to reduce in order to save the volume of the first stage of the Leningrad metro was proposed personally by Stalin in the spring of 1941. Even before the war. And the thing was that almost all the stations of the first stage of the Leningrad metro were located in places of large passenger traffic or key transport hubs. And only the "Garden of January 9th" station was in the middle of a sparsely populated wasteland. Its very appearance in the project at this place was caused by the desire of the designers to avoid too long runs between stations.

On a German aerial photograph of 1942, the place where the station lobby should have been located is marked with a white circle. The garden itself was then half the size it is now, and there was sparse industrial development mixed with dilapidated huts around. Of course, it was this station that went under the knife first when Stalin demanded to save money.

Location of the station Garden on January 9th on the map

Aerial view of 1942 location of the station Garden on January 9th

After the war, the garden "January 9th" was doubled (photo on the left). However, they did not resume the construction of the station, it was not up to that. The pre-war design was also carried out in conditions of complete secrecy, the architectural schemes of the station have not been preserved, if they were at all. There is only one sketch left - the station lobby on Stachek Avenue (picture on the right).

Garden on January 9th after its reconstruction in 1947

Design sketch of the lobby of the station Garden on January 9th

It is clearly visible that in the aerial photograph of 1947, there is a vacant lot on the site of the proposed station lobby to the right of the garden. Even the old shacks are not still demolished.

Now we have one of the longest stretches in the St. Petersburg metro, an obvious empty space between the stations Kirovsky Zavod and Narvskaya and a house on the corner of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Street, at the end of which the exit from the station was supposed to be located. Right here.

The house where the lobby of the station Garden on January 9th was supposed to be located

You can admire - the garden fence is directly opposite. Moreover, this is the same fence that stood in the Summer Garden before the revolution. Small world.

In principle, from a modern point of view, the metro station is also not particularly in demand here. There are few people living in this area, there is a lot of public transport.

Such are the pies with kittens.