136. Ploshchad Lenina & Finlyandskiy Station
Ploshchad Lenina (Lenin Square) is the main square at the southern end of St. Petersburg's Kalininsky District, which reaches north from the Neva River in the northeast part of the city. The square itself is bounded by the Neva on the south end and by Finlyandskiy Station to the north. I've been to Lenin Square five times - four times at either end of two round-trip voyages on the Allegro train between Finlyandskiy station and Helsinki, and once specifically just to walk around the square. When traveling to Finland, it's necessary to exit the Metro in the main train station building, go outside to Ploshchad Lenina, and turn the corner to enter the international train station a block to the northeast (and the reverse direction on the return home). The main tracks accessed from inside the station building are reserved for local commuter trains, which I've not had cause to take.
I did not have time to explore Ploshchad Lenina when I was leaving for or returning from a train trip, so I had not had more than a glimpse across the street to the central square until my most recent excursion. I wanted to come back to get a closer look at the huge Lenin statue, a rival to the similar statue in Moskovskaya Ploshchad. The statues are quite similar - both feature Lenin wearing a trench coat and extending his right arm out in front of his body, and both are larger than life. Strolling out to the middle of the square also allowed better views of the relief sculptures decorating the facade of the train station (the building dates to 1950, and is a relatively understated example of Stalinist architecture), as well as the sunset over the Neva River. The fountains that surround the statue were turned off already in preparation for the cold weather, but during the warmer months, the jets of water are synchronized to musical accompaniment.
Finlyandskiy Station is famous as the train station to which Vladimir Lenin arrived in April 1917 to lead the Russian Revolution, so that's the reason for the name of the square as well as the choice of monument here. Lenin had been living in exile in Switzerland, but when social unrest reached the boiling point in March of that year, he felt the time was right to return to Russia. With the permission of the German authorities, he rode in a sealed train car from Switzerland through Germany, followed by a ferry ride to Sweden and then on to Finlyandskiy Station in Petrograd (now known as St. Petersburg, of course). Germany and Russia were on opposing sides in World War I but the Germans correctly saw that Lenin's anti-war stance would undermine Russia's war effort, and indeed Russia withdrew from the conflict at the end of that year. The train in which Lenin arrived in Russia (and atop which he delivered an important speech that provided inspiration to the Bolshevik cause) is apparently on display in the station, but only visible if you're on the tracks for the local commuter trains; I'm not sure if I'll have the opportunity to see it.
Here's some trivia for 1980s pop music fans: the song "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys features the following lyric in the final verse: "In every city, in every nation, from Lake Geneva to the Finland station (How far have you been?)". Neil Tennant - the singer/songwriter in the group - was a history major in college with a particular interest in Russia, and this line refers to Lenin's 1917 train ride. So, Finlyandskiy Station was mentioned in a 1985 #1 hit from an English synth-pop duo, in perhaps the strangest-ever reference to Russian history in English-language popular music.
I did not have time to explore Ploshchad Lenina when I was leaving for or returning from a train trip, so I had not had more than a glimpse across the street to the central square until my most recent excursion. I wanted to come back to get a closer look at the huge Lenin statue, a rival to the similar statue in Moskovskaya Ploshchad. The statues are quite similar - both feature Lenin wearing a trench coat and extending his right arm out in front of his body, and both are larger than life. Strolling out to the middle of the square also allowed better views of the relief sculptures decorating the facade of the train station (the building dates to 1950, and is a relatively understated example of Stalinist architecture), as well as the sunset over the Neva River. The fountains that surround the statue were turned off already in preparation for the cold weather, but during the warmer months, the jets of water are synchronized to musical accompaniment.
Finlyandskiy Station is famous as the train station to which Vladimir Lenin arrived in April 1917 to lead the Russian Revolution, so that's the reason for the name of the square as well as the choice of monument here. Lenin had been living in exile in Switzerland, but when social unrest reached the boiling point in March of that year, he felt the time was right to return to Russia. With the permission of the German authorities, he rode in a sealed train car from Switzerland through Germany, followed by a ferry ride to Sweden and then on to Finlyandskiy Station in Petrograd (now known as St. Petersburg, of course). Germany and Russia were on opposing sides in World War I but the Germans correctly saw that Lenin's anti-war stance would undermine Russia's war effort, and indeed Russia withdrew from the conflict at the end of that year. The train in which Lenin arrived in Russia (and atop which he delivered an important speech that provided inspiration to the Bolshevik cause) is apparently on display in the station, but only visible if you're on the tracks for the local commuter trains; I'm not sure if I'll have the opportunity to see it.
Here's some trivia for 1980s pop music fans: the song "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys features the following lyric in the final verse: "In every city, in every nation, from Lake Geneva to the Finland station (How far have you been?)". Neil Tennant - the singer/songwriter in the group - was a history major in college with a particular interest in Russia, and this line refers to Lenin's 1917 train ride. So, Finlyandskiy Station was mentioned in a 1985 #1 hit from an English synth-pop duo, in perhaps the strangest-ever reference to Russian history in English-language popular music.
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