Baltiysky Railway Station

Baltiysky railway station is one of St Petersburg's working railway terminals, located in the Admiralteysky District on the embankment of the Obvodny Canal. For decades it has dispatched suburban trains toward Peterhof, Gatchina and Lomonosov, and more recently long-distance services to Pskov as well. The building ranks among the city's oldest station structures and retains the appearance it was given when built in the mid-19th century.

The station's history began as a private venture: in 1853 Baron Alexander Stieglitz, together with Baron Feleisen, undertook to build a railway from the capital to Peterhof. The building erected for this line was originally called the Peterhof Station, and traffic on it opened on 21 July 1857. Over the following decade and a half the line was extended through Krasnoye Selo to Gatchina, Narva and Reval, becoming part of the Baltic Railway. On 19 December 1872 the first train from Reval arrived at the station, and from that point the name Baltiysky became attached to it.

The building was designed by the architect Alexander Krakau, who took the Gare de l'Est in Paris as his model but replaced its semicircular train-shed roof with a gabled one. The structure is executed in neo-Renaissance forms and has a U-shaped plan: the centre of the façade is flanked by low, symmetrical turrets, while wings with projecting bays are attached at either end — the left one intended for receiving the imperial family, the right one used for luggage and ticket offices. The main façade is more than fifty-six metres long; the end wall of the train shed is decorated with a large semicircular stained-glass window with a built-in Pavel Bure clock, and the platform hall is covered by a glass roof.

In 1931–1932 the station was rebuilt to accommodate growing suburban traffic: the tracks were removed from beneath the dome, the side entrances were closed, and a central entrance was created where windows had previously been. In January 1933 electric trains were tested for the first time in Leningrad on the section to Ligovo station, and by 1967 the line had been converted to 3.3 kV for ER1 and ER2 series trains. In 1955 an above-ground vestibule for the Baltiyskaya metro station was attached to the left wing, disrupting the symmetry of the façade. On 11 November 2002 an accident occurred on the station square: a maintenance electric train that had started moving on its own derailed, killing four people.

From 2001, after the closure of Varshavsky station, Baltiysky took over suburban trains to Gatchina-Varshavskaya, Siverskaya and Luga, and in the early 2000s it was renovated and fitted with fare turnstiles. Since the winter of 2014 long-distance trains have again appeared on its platforms, and since 2018 a high-speed Lastochka service has departed daily for Pskov. Around 2,800 suburban passengers use the station every hour.

Today Baltiysky station remains both a working transport hub and an architectural landmark: since 2009 the building has held the status of a regional cultural heritage site. Its historic architecture, combined with fully functioning infrastructure, makes the station a recognisable landmark of the western part of central St Petersburg.