Kazansky Rail Terminal

Kazansky Rail Terminal on Komsomolskaya Square is one of Moscow’s largest railway stations and arguably the most picturesque in terms of architecture. Conceived as a symbolic “gateway to the East” linking the capital with the Volga region, the Urals and Siberia, the building combines motifs of 17th-century Russian pattern-work (uzorochye) with elements of Eastern architecture, and remains one of the principal works of architect Alexei Shchusev.

The first, wooden station on this site opened in 1862 for the Ryazan Railway and was rebuilt several times as passenger traffic grew; the cramped building could no longer cope with the load by the early 20th century. In 1910 the board of the Moscow–Kazan Railway announced a competition for a new terminal, and in 1911 Shchusev’s project was declared the winner — he proposed a design in a national-romantic spirit that evoked the architecture of Kazan, Astrakhan and Central Asia. Construction began in 1913 but was interrupted by the First World War and dragged on, with interruptions, until 1940, although the building acquired its main appearance already by the mid-1920s.

The composition of the station is deliberately asymmetrical: blocks of varying heights with steep-pitched roofs are grouped around a multi-tiered corner tower styled after the Söyembikä Tower of the Kazan Kremlin, though the architect altered the proportions of its tiers. The tower’s spire is crowned by a weathervane in the shape of the Zilant dragon, the ancient emblem of Kazan, raised to a height of about 70 meters. The clock tower, its dial decorated with signs of the zodiac, echoes the clock tower of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, while one of the side volumes repeats the silhouette of the Kutafya Tower of the Moscow Kremlin.

Renowned artists were involved at various times in decorating the station’s interiors, including Nicholas Roerich, Alexandre Benois and Boris Kustodiev, although many of their designs were never realized. The chiming clock with bronze zodiac signs, devised by Shchusev, began working only in 1923 and was later damaged by a high-explosive bomb during the war. In 1935 the entrance to the Komsomolskaya metro station was built into the building, and a large-scale reconstruction in 1987–1997 renewed the interiors, added canopies over the platforms and was completed in time for Moscow’s 850th anniversary.

Today Kazansky Rail Terminal remains one of the busiest transport hubs in the capital, serving routes to Kazan, Ryazan, Samara and other cities of the Volga region and the Urals. An art gallery operates in the restored Tsar Tower, and the station itself continues to be seen not only as a transport facility but also as an architectural monument of the early 20th century.

The building’s history — with its long construction, the involvement of famous artists and numerous later reconstructions — has turned Kazansky Rail Terminal into one of Moscow’s most recognizable architectural ensembles. Its whimsical combination of Russian and Eastern motifs makes it a rare example of a “palace-station” designed as an independent work of art rather than merely a transport structure.