Saint Petersburg Metro - Stations

Stations

See also: List of Saint Petersburg Metro stations

Some of the features of the Saint Petersburg Metro make it stand out amongst others, even those in the former USSR. It is customary to have stations in the centre of a city built very deep, not only to minimise disruption, but also, because of the Cold War threat, they were built to double as bomb shelters, and many old stations do feature provisions such as blast doors and air filters. However, in most cities, the lines become shallow or even begin to run above ground as they reach the city's outer residential districts. However, this is not the case in Saint Petersburg. The difficult geology means that 56 out of 63 stations are at a deep level. The design and architecture went through numerous phases. The original stations were predominantly of the pylon type, of which there are 15 stations. Also popular was the column layout, and there are 16 such stations in the system.

The first stage is exquisitely decorated in the Stalinist Architecture style, but from 1958, Nikita Khrushchev's struggle with decorative extras restricted the vivid decorations to simple aestatic themes. During this time a new design called "horizontal lift" became widespread, and 10 stations were built with this layout. The horizontal lift design is a variation of a station with Platform screen doors, and has not been found elsewhere outside Saint Petersburg. However, because the design became unpopular with passengers, and for technical reasons, no stations featuring this design have been built since 1972. From the mid-1970s, a new open "single-vault" design was developed by local engineers and became very popular, not only in Saint Petersburg, but some other cities as well. Known technically as Leningradky Odnosvod, it remains the most popular of all and there are 16 such stations in the city.

The remaining stations are located virtually on the edge of the city, and one, Devyatkino, is territorially in Leningrad Oblast, far away from the harsh underground geology that forms the Neva Delta. The three shallow column stations that are located in the southwestern section of the city and are all on the Kirovsko-Vyborgskaya Line. The first one, Avtovo is considered to be one of the most beautiful stations in the world and was opened as part of the first stage in 1955, while the other two were built in the late 1970s as typical Moscow-style pillar trispan stations. In addition, there are four termini stations that are on the surface and are located near the lines' connection with the train depots. The city's northern climate means that even here all of the station space is inside an enclosed structure.