Finland railway station in St. Petersburg

Finlyandsky (Finland) railway station is the passenger terminal of the St. Petersburg-Passenger-Finlyandsky station, one of the 5 operating railway stations in St. Petersburg. Located at the address: Lenina Square, 6.

The first building of the station was erected in 1870 by architect Pyotr Kupinsky on Simbirskaya Street (now Komsomol Street) for the Finnish Railway, which connected the capital with the Grand Duchy of Finland. A 370 km long road from St. Petersburg was laid in 1862-1870 towards the first railway that had already begun to operate in Finland (built in 1858-1862) between Helsingfors (now Helsinki) and Tavastgus (now Hämeenlinna).

In the 1950s, a total  reconstruction of the station was carried out (architects P. A. Ashastin, N. V. Baranov, Ya. N. Lukin, engineer I. A. Rybin). An inclined course of the Ploshchad Lenina metro station was built (the metro station was opened on June 1, 1958 as part of the second stage of the metro), on the site of the station buildings overlooking Komsomol Street, a new main building of the station was erected in the style of functionalism (opened on June 4, 1960 year), facing the Neva.

The height of the building is about 8 meters. The main facade has 17 huge mirror windows and overlooks Lenin Square, completing its architectural ensemble. In the center of the building there is a clock tower, the height of which is 16 meters. It is crowned by a 30-meter stainless steel spire, previously used as a flagpole. The top of the spire is crowned with a star.

Suburban trains depart from the Finland Station in the northwestern and northeastern directions, regional long-distance trains Lastochka of the Karelian direction (St. Petersburg – Sortavala; St. Petersburg – Matkaselka), as well as high-speed long-distance trains St. Petersburg – Helsinki.

In the left wing of the station there is a ground lobby of the Ploshchad Lenina metro station. About 1.5 thousand people use the services of the Finland Station every hour.

The station is most famous for having been the location where Vladimir Lenin returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland on 16 April 1917, ahead of the October Revolution.

In memory of this event, a monument was erected on the Lenin square near the old building of the Finland Station in 1926.

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