Komsomolskaya Square (Moscow)

Komsomolskaya Square (Moscow)

Komsomolskaya Square (Russian: Комсомо́льская пло́щадь), known as Kalanchyovskaya before 1932, is one of the busiest squares in Moscow, noted for its impressive blend of revivalist Tsarist and Stalinist architecture. It is often referred to informally as Three Station Square (Пло́щадь трёх вокза́лов) or simply Three Stations (Три вокза́ла) thanks to three ornate rail termini situated there: Leningradsky, Yaroslavsky, and Kazansky.

Its origins lay with the construction of the Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway in the 1840s, when Kalanchyovskoye Field outside the Garden Ring was selected to allocate the Nicholas Railway Station. In 1862 the Yaroslavsky Rail Terminal, a terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway, was constructed nearby. On the opposite side of the field the Kazanskiy Rail Terminal was inaugurated two years later. Until 1909, a railway line leading to Kursky Rail Terminal traversed the square; it is now elevated so as not to interfere with street traffic.

During the Soviet period, four other intimidating structures were added. Alexey Shchusev designed a Constructivist edifice, the Central Club of Railway Workers, in 1925–1926. The square received its present name, in the honour of the Komsomol (Communist Union of Youth) members, in 1932. A Stalinist skyscraper of the Hotel Leningradskaya and a Neoclassical vestibule of the Komsomolskaya-Koltsevaya metro station were completed in the early 1950s. The most recent addition is the Moskovsky department store on the eastern side of the square (1983).

Even in the 21st century, it is this square that greets most visitors arriving to Moscow from Saint Petersburg and the whole northwestern Russia (through Moscow-Saint Petersburg Railway), the Volga region, and Siberia (through Trans-Siberian Railway).

In 2003, on behest of the Ministry of Transportation, a bronze statue of Pavel Melnikov (1804–1880) was erected on the square, to commemorate the Russian minister of transportation who superintended the construction of the first railways in Russia.