Kropotkinskaya is a station on the
Sokolnicheskaya LineThe Sokolnicheskaya Line , formerly Kirovsko-Frunzenskaya , is the first line of the Moscow Metro, dating back to 1935 when the system opened. Presently the line has 19 stations with a total of of track...
of the
Moscow MetroThe Moscow Metro , which spans almost the entire Russian capital, is the world's second most heavily used rapid-transit system. Opened in 1935, it is well known for the ornate design of many of its stations, which contain outstanding examples of socialist realist art.-Description of the Metro:In...
. One of the better-known Metro stations, it was designed by
Alexey DushkinAlexey Nikolayevich Dushkin was a Soviet architect, best known for his 1930s designs of Kropotkinskaya and Mayakovskaya stations of Moscow Metro...
and Ya.G. Likhtenberg and opened in 1935 as part of the original Metro line.
The station was originally planned to serve the enormous
Palace of SovietsThe Palace of Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
(Dvorets Sovetov), which was to rise nearby on the former site of the
Cathedral of Christ the SaviourThe Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or Khram Khrista Spasitelya is a Church in Moscow, Russia, on the bank of the Moskva River, a few blocks west of the Kremlin...
. Kropotkinskaya was therefore designed to be the largest and grandest station on the first line.
Kropotkinskaya is a station on the
Sokolnicheskaya LineThe Sokolnicheskaya Line , formerly Kirovsko-Frunzenskaya , is the first line of the Moscow Metro, dating back to 1935 when the system opened. Presently the line has 19 stations with a total of of track...
of the
Moscow MetroThe Moscow Metro , which spans almost the entire Russian capital, is the world's second most heavily used rapid-transit system. Opened in 1935, it is well known for the ornate design of many of its stations, which contain outstanding examples of socialist realist art.-Description of the Metro:In...
. One of the better-known Metro stations, it was designed by
Alexey DushkinAlexey Nikolayevich Dushkin was a Soviet architect, best known for his 1930s designs of Kropotkinskaya and Mayakovskaya stations of Moscow Metro...
and Ya.G. Likhtenberg and opened in 1935 as part of the original Metro line.
The station was originally planned to serve the enormous
Palace of SovietsThe Palace of Soviets was a project to construct an administrative center and a congress hall in Moscow, Russia, near the Kremlin, on the site of the demolished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour...
(Dvorets Sovetov), which was to rise nearby on the former site of the
Cathedral of Christ the SaviourThe Cathedral of Christ the Saviour or Khram Khrista Spasitelya is a Church in Moscow, Russia, on the bank of the Moskva River, a few blocks west of the Kremlin...
. Kropotkinskaya was therefore designed to be the largest and grandest station on the first line. However, the Palace project was cancelled by Khrushchev in 1953, leaving the Metro station as the only part of the complex that was actually built.
Kropotkinskaya was constructed in a massive open trench measuring 176 metres long by 25 metres wide. The tunnels from
Biblioteka Imeni LeninaBiblioteka Imeni Lenina is a station on the Sokolnicheskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. The station was opened on May 15, 1935 as a part of the first stage of the Metro. It is situated in the very centre of the city under the Mokhovaya Street, and is named for the nearby Russian State Library...
were constructed using the cut and cover technique. The combination of unrestricted space and dry soil made for ideal conditions, and construction of the station took only 180 days from start to finish. Kropotkinskaya was completed in January 1935 and opened five months later, on May 15. The station was named
Dvorets Sovetov until 1957, when it was renamed in honour of
Peter KropotkinPeter Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a geographer, a zoologist, and one of Russia's foremost anarchists. One of the first advocates of anarchist communism, Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government. Because of his title of prince, he was known by some as "the Anarchist...
.
Since it was to serve as the gateway to the Palace of Soviets, great care was taken to make Kropotkinskaya suitably elegant and impressive. The station has flared columns faced with white
marbleMarble is a non foliated metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, composed mostly of calcite . It is extensively used for sculpture, as a building material, and in many other applications...
which are said to have been inspired by the
Temple of AmonThe Precinct of Amun-Re, located near Luxor, Egypt, is one of the four main enclosed areas that make up the immense Karnak Temple Complex. The precinct is by far the largest of these and the only one that is open to the general public...
at
KarnakThe very old Karnak Temple Complex — usually called simply Karnak — comprises a vast conglomeration of ruined temples, chapels, pylons and other buildings, notably the Great Temple of Amen and a massive structure begun by Pharoah Amenhotep III . It is located near Luxor, some 500 km south of Cairo,...
. Contrary to popular opinion, the marble used in the station did not come from the demolished Cathedral. The spacious platform is covered with squares of gray and red
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
and the walls, originally tiled, are now faced with white
Koyelga marble. The station is illuminated by concealed lamps set into the tops of the columns.
A model of the station won two Grand Prix awards at expositions in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
(1937) and
BrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium...
(1958). In 1941 the designers and engineers were also awarded the
Stalin prize of the USSRThe USSR State Prize was the Soviet Union's state honour. It was established on September 9 1966. After the breakup of the Soviet Union the prize was followed up by the State Prize of the Russian Federation....
for architecture and construction.
Kropotkinskaya opened with only one entrance vestibule, located at the end of Gogolevskiy Boulevard. This U-shaped structure was designed by S.M. Kravets and features two separate pavilions joined by a central arch. In late 1950s the station was given a slight reconstruction replacing the original cast of the upper pillars was replaced by marble and the floor was relayed with granite. The reconstruction finished with a new entrance which faces the Cathedral and
Moskva RiverThe Moskva River is a river that flows through the Moscow and Smolensk Oblasts in Russia, and is a tributary of the Oka River.-Etymology:Moskva and Moscow are two different renderings of the same Russian word Москва. The city is named after the river. The origin of the name is unknown, although...
which was opened on 16 July 1960.
Because of the demise of the Palace of Soviets project, much of Kropotkinskaya's planned ridership never materialized. Currently the station serves about 42050 passengers daily, many of them tourists visiting the newly rebuilt Cathedral or the
Pushkin Museum of Fine ArtsThe Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow, located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour....
.
In the distant future the station is planned become a transfer to the
Kalininskaya LineThe Kalininskaya Line is a line of the Moscow Metro. It was opened as the eastwards Perovo radius lines in 1979 and presently has 7 stations.-History:...
. The future station will be called Ostozhenka or Kadashevskaya.
External links
Kropotkinskaya on the official site of the Moscow Metro Description of the station on Metro.ru Description of the station on Mymetro.ru Description of the station on Metro.molot.ru KartaMetro.info — Station location and exits on Moscow map