Volgograd-1 Railway Station

The station building was put up in 1954 on the site of the old station destroyed in the Battle of Stalingrad, to a design by Alexei Kurovsky and Sergei Briskin.

The building

It is done in the grand postwar manner: symmetrical wings, a semicircular arch over the main entrance, sculptural groups on either side and a clock tower topped by a spire with a star. Painted ceilings and mouldings devoted to the defence of the city survive inside, so the waiting hall works as a monument as well.

The Children's Round Dance

The fountain of the Children's Round Dance stands on the station square: six children dancing in a ring around a crocodile, after Chukovsky's tale.

The famous photograph

The pre-war fountain was made famous by Emmanuil Evzerikhin's photograph, taken in 1942 after a bombing raid: the intact figures against the burning city became one of the defining images of the war. That fountain was demolished in the 1950s, and a copy was only put back in 2013, so the fountain standing today is not the one in the photograph but a recreation of it.

The square now reads as a single composition of station and fountain, and it is best approached from the avenue, where both fall into one frame.

Address

Privokzalnaya Square 1, Volgograd

Opening hours

Open around the clock as a working station

Prices

Free

On the map