Admiralteyskaya

The station is named after the Admiralty, next to which it is located. Initially, the exit from the station was planned much closer to the Admiralty, but even so Admiralteyskaya is the nearest metro station to the Palace, St. Isaac's and Senate Squares.

The decision to build this station was made in the late 1980s, but the construction of the underground part of the station began only in 1991, it was interrupted in 1997. According to one version, due to lack of funding, according to another - due to the inability to find a building suitable for an exit in a dense old building on the surface. Construction was resumed only in 2005.

In fact, the station was put into operation (train traffic was opened) on September 15, 1997 and was built together with neighboring stations Sportivnaya (upper hall) and Chkalovskaya, but without interior decoration and platform. Trains passed the station without stopping. Until 2011, a dimly lit platform could be seen from the train window (at first there were only two "balconies" for the transition from one side platform to another) and the columns of the station. Then all the openings between the columns were covered with metal sheets.

Initially, since the 1970s, the station was supposed to be a transfer station, even the name "Admiralteyskaya-1" was mentioned. It is specially designed and built along a straight section of the tunnel 3rd Green Line - between the stations Gostiny Dvor and Vasileostrovskaya - where Admiralteyskaya-2 was supposed to be located. Initially, it was assumed that both transfer stations would have a common entrance and a Y-shaped corridor diverging to both stations.

However, in the Saint-Petersburg metro construction, there is no experience of embedding stations on existing metro sections without blocking traffic or at least embedding exit cameras to connect temporary bypass tunnels. Therefore, Admiralteyskaya-2 was not built, and was also removed from the metro construction plans for the coming decades.

The groundwork for the transition to the second station is ready, but it is closed, it cannot be visually detected. Also, during the construction of the transition, the mosaic panel at the end of the station will be moved.

In July 2010, it was announced that Admiralteyskaya would not be a transfer station. However, on June 28, 2011, a new metro development plan was adopted, according to which Admiralteyskaya can receive not one, but two transfers: to the Admiralteyskaya-2 station of the planned Admiralteysko-Okhtinskaya line and to the prospective Admiralteyskaya-3 station of the current 3rd Green Line.

It is important that in theory, according to the current regulations, Admiralteyskaya cannot be an interchange station, because due to the design of the pedestrian corridor between the large and small inclined passages, it can have only one exit to the city.

By the way, about the exit. At the end of the station there is a small excalator, 15.2 meters long.

There is no hermetic door on this site. Above the entrance to the small escalator there is a beautiful stained glass window with a clock.

Let's go upstairs. Here lies a 112-meter transition corridor of complex shape. This is caused by both the great depth of the station and the non-obvious location of the exit on the surface.

The corridor is very interesting in itself. There is a hermetic door of vertical type ("guillotine"). On one of the sides of the hermetic seal structure there is a panel "Neptune".

Here you can also find a lot of interesting elements.

Including colorful navigation signs.

And at the end of the passage, in front of a large escalator, you can see a magnificent panel "Neva".

In the center of this panel is a beautiful stone lion with a ring in its nose. Everything is as it should be.

Let's go up the big escalator. The length is 68.7 meters, the lifting time is more than 3 minutes. Two escalators are needed because Admiralteyskaya station is the deepest in Russia (86 meters) and the third deepest in the world. A single escalator could not work at such a great depth. A similar two-escalator solution is implemented at the station Proletarskaya.

The lobby upstairs is also not the easiest.

The ceiling of the lobby is decorated with the composition "Wind Rose" (there is a similar composition on the floor of the central hall of the station).

Above the escalators you can see the mosaic panel "Admiralty".

Let's go outside and evaluate the station from the outside.

A separate and long history is connected with the location of the ground lobby of the Admiralteyskaya station.

The center of Saint-Petersburg is exceptionally dense and complex in terms of development, infrastructure and engineering networks, geology and other things. Initially, since the 1970s, in order to reach the surface of the Admiralteyskaya station, it was planned to demolish and rebuild the post-war house at the address Kirpichny Lane, house No. 1/4 (at the intersection with Malaya Morskaya Street).

However, after 1991, wolf capitalism and private property came to the country, many residential premises of the house planned for reconstruction were bought by tenants, and the resettlement of the house faced serious legal difficulties both from the tenants and from the city authorities, although the house itself was not of historical value.

In 2005, attempts began to find a new location for the station lobby. The large depth of the station's foundation suggested long escalator passages and a large radius of possible placement of the exit to the surface relative to the station itself.

The most interesting location for a possible exit from the Admiralteyskaya station is the Moika River embankment, house 61. It was there that Mikhail Lomonosov's estate was once located. Construction was also considered in the Alexander Garden, under the intersection of Gorokhovaya Street and Admiralteysky Avenue and in other colorful places.

However, by 2007, all these exotic options were rejected, primarily due to the inconvenient location of traffic flows, and a political decision was made to return to the original option and forcibly resettle the problematic house.

On September 6, 2007, the Government of Saint-Petersburg adopted a resolution on the seizure of land, apartments and premises in the target house with the wording "for state needs". In the summer of 2009, the house was demolished, but the facade elements were removed and used for finishing a new office building. The tunnel was completed by April 2011. The grand opening of the Admiralteyskaya station took place on December 28, 2011, while for more than a year part of the building was fenced in connection with the completion of the shopping complex.

Let's go back underground.

On the old shots, the design of the lamps at the lower exit from the lower escalator is clearly visible.

The station is very beautiful, although on long plans dark columns make it gloomy.

As we have already shown, there are 4 escalators in one end.

In the other end there is another wonderful panel "The Foundation of the Admiralty".

Peter's appearance has something in common with Mikhail Lomonosov's famous smalt about the Poltava Battle.

Along the walls of the station there are six bas-reliefs with famous Russian naval commanders. Between them, on the floor, you can just observe the rose of the winds.

Admirals Ushakov and Nakhimov are also here.

And Makarov and Apraksin.

And of course Bellingshausen and Grigorovich.

The doors in the track walls are also colorful, with an anchor. And the name of the station on the track walls is accompanied by an Admiralty weather vane. This ship in Soviet times was the unofficial coat of arms of Leningrad.

The lighting in the central hall is behind the curtain.

And in the side halls - direct. Interestingly, emergency lamps are located separately among the lamps (in the photo on the right). But still, compared to the central hall, the sides are somewhat dark.

Interestingly, the Accounting Chamber of Saint-Petersburg suspects embezzlement during the construction of this station of over 6 billion rubles. Such a good amount.

A whole brood of TV cameras in the end of the side hall is interesting (photo on the left).

On the evening of December 31, 2011, the station's escalators stopped for 15 minutes and several hundred passengers celebrated the New Year in the Admiralteyskaya escalator hall.

During navigation on the Neva River, it is one of two stations open to passengers at night.

The photos of different years clearly show the change in the color of the station's lighting in different years.

In general, the station is more than worth visiting.