Simferopol Station

Simferopol-Pasazhirsky (Ukr. Simferopol-Pasazhirsky) is a railway station in the Crimea and the main railway station of the city of Simferopol.

The modern station is one of the main architectural sights of the capital of Crimea, built according to the project of the famous Soviet architect A. N. Dushkin in 1951, reconstructed in 2000.

The lack of a railway in Crimea greatly complicated the Crimean campaign, and after the war complicated trade and restrained the development of the economy of Crimea and neighboring regions.
In the summer of 1871, the construction of the Lozovo-Sevastopol railway began. It was planned to build a 615 verst long highway in three years. Work was carried out simultaneously on the entire track. Low-paid labor in the harsh conditions of winter and summer provoked a struggle for basic rights. Strikes broke out at the construction site, the largest of which occurred in May 1873 on the site of Simferopol-Sevastopol. Near Simferopol, the construction began by the autumn of 1872. The importance of the railway for the city was obvious to large capital in the person of industrialists and merchants. And they did their best to change the original road plan. The road was supposed to go almost in a straight line to Sevastopol, passing about 20 kilometers west of Simferopol. The authorities and landowners of Simferopol provided free land for the railway and the station with a locomotive depot. As a result of their efforts, the road deviated from the original plan and passed through the western marshy outskirts of Simferopol. The first section of the road: Lozovaya - Alexandrovsk with a branch on Ekaterinoslav was commissioned on November 15, 1873, the second Alexandrovsk-Melitopol was opened on July 23, 1874. On June 1, 1874, the first freight train arrived at Simferopol station. And on October 14, 1874, the Melitopol-Simferopol section (228 versts) of the Lozovo-Sevastopol railway was officially commissioned. The first passenger train arrived at the station that day. The site of Simferopol - Sevastopol (72 versts) was built until the next 1875. On January 5, the Lozova-Simferopol road went into operation. In 1909, the freight turnover of the Simferopol railway station amounted to almost 11 million poods of various goods. The development of industry in the Crimea required the import of oil, coal, iron, steel, tin, rail, timber, construction stone. Exported from the Crimea mainly agricultural products: fruits, vegetables, tobacco, grape wine and lime. At the station operated an underground group under the leadership of Viktor Kirillovich Efremov (1916-1944). Before the Great Patriotic War, V. K. Efremov worked as deputy head of the Simferopol railway station. He sent trains with people and military cargo to Sevastopol until the last moment. The occupants shot his wife, and he was offered to work for the Reich, first as a coupling wagons, and then as a "Russian station chief."

Soon V. K. Efremov organized an underground group, which included the trainer I. G. Levitsky, the rifleman V. E. Lavrinenko, the translator (former teacher of the railway school) N. S. Usova, the storekeeper A. A. Breyer, the secretary L. M. Terentyev (Efremov), the handyman N. Y. Sokolov. At the station of Simferopol, 17 sabotages were committed, as a result of which 9 echelons with ammunition, two with fuel were blown up, a total of many dozens of cars with various cargoes [6]. Under various pretexts, the repair of rolling stock and tracks was delayed. Equipment has deteriorated. Intelligence about the number and direction of movement of goods, equipment and troops was transmitted. In early March 1944, failures began in the underground organization. On March 8, V. K. Efremov and members of his group V. E. Lavrinenko and I. G. Levitsky were arrested. A. A. Breyer, not wanting to surrender to the Nazis, threw himself under the train. In 1972, a memorial sign was installed on the building of the new station with bas-reliefs by V. K. Efremov and members of his group A. A. Brayer, V. E. Lavrinenko, I. G. Levitsky, N. Y. Sokolov. The authors of the monument are sculptors V. V. Petrenko and N. I. Petrenko. The old station, like the station itself, was destroyed during the retreat of the occupiers in April 1944. On April 13, Simferopol was liberated, and on April 15, the Simferopol people went on a Saturday – it was necessary to dismantle the rubble, clear houses and streets. Railway workers cleared the tracks, repaired the depot, restored communication. In the shortest possible time, trains were launched to the Crimea - the track was sewn over and the first train arrived on April 24.

The first years after liberation, hastily restored locomotives and wagons worked on the line. In 1950, the station received the first diesel locomotives and all-metal cars. In 1970, the Melitopol-Simferopol section was electrified, the movement of electric trains along this route was opened. By 1975, the contact network was brought to Sevastopol. In 1951, the main architectural decoration of the station square was the station building, built according to the project of architect A. N. Dushkin. The station area has been significantly expanded. In 1999-2000, the first overhaul was carried out after the construction of a new station building in 1951. In September 2010, a three-storey suburban station is planned to be built nearby. [7] The modern building of the station[edit] The project of the station A. N. Dushkin developed in 1945. In 1946, construction began, just north of the old station. The new building was built from 1946 to 1951. The whole city gathered for the opening of the station, Kliment Voroshilov was present. The station is a magnificent example of southern architecture, organically blended into the surrounding landscape. The station complex consists of three parts: the main and service buildings, and the clock tower. Parts of the station are organically connected by a system of arches and galleries. The building has many similarities with the building of the railway station of Sochi, also designed by A. N. Dushkin. Main building[edit | edit wiki-text] The building is built of white Inkerman stone in the post-war Soviet style of "triumph". The style of the main building of the station can be defined as Italian: the main building was built in a symmetrical projection, and two galleries are arranged on both sides of it, creating space for the courtyard. It was supposed to build a transparent roof, which was later planned to cover with a glass roof and create a winter garden there, like a garden in the Vorontsov Palace, but the architect’s plan was not implemented. The decoration of the courtyard resembles the Italian courtyard of the Livadia Palace. On the roof of the station building is a building made in the form of an ancient temple. The emergence of modern transport and a large industrial enterprise led to the rapid development of the city. The city began to be built in the western direction from the old border of the city (modern street Tolstoy). The station has the largest working settlement of Simferopol - Railway. This is a modern residential area south of Lenin Boulevard, between the street. Pavlenko and the railroad.

Thanks to the railway, real industrial enterprises appear, huge opportunities for using local resources open up. The first such enterprises were a branch of the Moscow confectionery factory "Einem" and the factory of A. I. Abrikosov At the initial stage of construction of the station, German prisoners of war worked. On the dial instead of Virgo, Libra, Taurus - the signs of the zodiac are depicted Ophiuchus, Hound Dogs and Swan. The rest of the signs have broken sequence. Originally on the spire of the clock tower was a golden wheat wreath. The station is the only one in the world where there were two monuments to Stalin. On one way before the construction of separate suburban platforms, it was possible to board commuter trains in opposite directions. On the scoreboard in the column “Zapiznannya” (Russian late) such cases were noted by abbreviations “South” (southern part) or “SEV” (northern part, close to the clock tower). PIBHICH-PIBDEN direction indicators (instead of the old North-South signs) were installed on the platforms themselves (No. 1-4) after the reconstruction of 2000. The fountain in the Italian courtyard lacks two pigeons – they were removed immediately after the discovery of the fact that the figurines of the fountain pigeons form a swastika. Until the mid-1980s, the station building was heated by ovens. The clock tower is actually a water tower. The musical mechanism of the tower clock is actually very small, and is not able to produce a loud enough sound to “cry out” the noise of the station – it uses an amplifier and loudspeakers installed on the roof of the tower. In the arch under the clock tower until the mid-1980s was located the control room of the long-distance trolleybus. Currently, trolleybuses are sent from the Station Square, serving the world’s longest intercity trolleybus line, which is a logical continuation of the railway to the southern coast of Crimea. There is also a bus station "Resort". Sochi has a twin train station built a year later. Since 2014, charity concerts of symphonic and sacred music have been held in the station building, on the initiative of the Crimean journalist and public figure Alexei Vasiliev.