Paveletsky Railway Station

Paveletsky station opened on 1 September 1900 as the Moscow terminus of the Ryazan-Ural railway, and from 1912 to 1941 it was officially called Saratovsky. The authorship of the design is still disputed between Nikolai Kvashnin, Yuly Diederichs and Alexander Krasovsky.

The building

The station stretches along the square as a low symmetrical band: a central projection with a clock and a semicircular pediment, flanked by wings with arched windows and rusticated portals. In the early 1980s it was rebuilt, growing about sixfold in volume and quadrupling its passenger capacity, but the architects Alexander Gurkov, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Alexander Vorontsov kept the historic facade and the clock silhouette. The rebuilt station opened on 3 November 1987.

The funeral train

On 23 January 1924 the train carrying Lenin's body arrived here from Gorki. Locomotive U-127 and baggage car No. 1691 stayed at the station as a memorial, and a pavilion was built for them in the adjoining square at the turn of the 1980s. It now houses the Moscow Railway Museum, with the train standing inside in full and an exhibition on the history of the line around it.

Where the trains go

Paveletsky serves the south and south-east, with trains to Volgograd, Astrakhan and Sochi, plus suburban services on the Paveletsky line. The Aeroexpress to Domodedovo airport has run from here since 2002. The station sits above an interchange between two metro lines, the Circle line and the Zamoskvoretskaya line, both called Paveletskaya.

The square

The square in front of the station spent twenty years as an open pit until a shopping centre was finished beneath it. On 17 September 2021 a park opened on its roof: three hectares of lawns, paths and glazed skylight domes. Because of it the facade is now visible in full from a green slope, a rare view among Moscow stations with nothing in the way.

Address

Paveletskaya Square 1a, Moscow · metro Paveletskaya

Opening hours

Station 24/7, railway museum Wed–Sun 10:00–17:00

Prices

Station free, museum 410 RUB, concession 260

On the map