Vosstaniya Square (russian: Пло́щадь Восста́ния, lit. ''Uprising Square'') is a major square in the

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

. The square lies at the crossing of

Nevsky Prospekt Nevsky Prospect ( rus, Не́вский проспе́кт, r=Nevsky Prospekt, p=ˈnʲɛfskʲɪj prɐˈspʲɛkt) is the main street (high street) in the federal city of St. Petersburg in Russia. It takes its name from the Alexander Nevsky L ...

Ligovsky Prospekt Ligovsky Prospekt () is a major street in Saint Petersburg. Before the establishment of the city, it was a street leading to Novgorod, used by the people living in the villages around the Neva delta. Between 1718-25, when Saint Petersburg wa ...

, Vosstaniya Street and Goncharnaya Street, in front of the Moskovsky Rail Terminal, which is the northern terminus of the line connecting the city with

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. Administratively, the Vosstaniya Square falls under the authority of the Tsentralny District.

History

From the 1840s to 1918 the square was known as Znamenskaya Square ( ru , Знаменская площадь, "Sign Square"), after the built there between 1794 and 1804 to a Neoclassical design by . The church building commemorated the

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...

Our Lady of the Sign The Icon of ''Our Lady of the Sign'' ( el, Panagia or Παναγία Ορωμένη or Παναγία Πλατυτέρα; cu, italic=yes, Ikona Bozhey Materi "Znamenie"; pl, Ikona Bogurodzicy "Znamienie") is the term for a particular type of ic ...

. Four years before the Romanov Tercentenary, in 1909, Prince

Paolo Troubetzkoy Prince Paolo Petrovich Troubetzkoy (also known as Pavel or Paul; russian: Павел Петрович Трубецкой, translit=Pavel Petrovich Trubetskoy; Intra, Italy, 15 February 1866 — Pallanza, 12 February 1938) was an artist and a sc ...

, an artist and sculptor, completed a tremendous equestrian statue of Tsar Alexander III. It stood opposite Nikolayevsky Station in Znamenskaya Square. Even members of the imperial family ridiculed the statue; after the revolution the Bolsheviks left it in place as a powerful and formidable representation of the autocracy until the 1930s, when it was removed. It remained in storage for fifty years before re-erection in 1994 in front of the Marble Palace (formerly the Leningrad branch of the Lenin Museum), on the former site of the armoured car that had transported

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...

from the Finland Station on 1917. The square was a scene of many revolutionary demonstrations and protests. After the

Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

took control of

Petrograd Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

in 1917, they had the square renamed (1918) into ''Uprising Square'' (literally: "Square of the Uprising") to commemorate these events. The Church of the Sign was demolished in 1940 to make room for the surface vestibule of the Ploshchad Vosstaniya (Vosstaniya Square) Metro station, which opened in 1955. The Leningrad

Hero-City Obelisk Leningrad Hero City Obelisk (russian: Обелиск «Городу-герою Ленинграду») is a monument in the shape of an obelisk located in Vosstaniya Square in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which was known as Leningrad from 1924 to 19 ...

was erected on the same spot in 1985 in order to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Victory Day. In 2010, the Galereya shopping center opened on the square, including a large

Stockmann Stockmann plc is a Finnish retailer established in 1862. Stockmann's eight company-owned department stores are in Finland (six), Estonia (one), and Latvia (one). There also was an additional nine Stockmann-branded department stores in Russia o ...

department store."Grand opening for Galeria Mall, St Petersburg", ''Mace'', December 3, 2010

Transport hub

The Vosstaniya Square is a major traffic hub of Saint Petersburg. It is home to the large Moscow Rail Terminal, from where trains depart for

Novosibirsk Novosibirsk (, also ; rus, Новосиби́рск, p=nəvəsʲɪˈbʲirsk, a=ru-Новосибирск.ogg) is the largest city and administrative centre of Novosibirsk Oblast and Siberian Federal District in Russia. As of the 2021 Censu ...

and other major cities, it is filled with passengers every day. The square is home to the

metro station A metro station or subway station is a station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the system in t ...

Ploshchad Vosstaniya. The square is also a main hub for marshrutkas, taxis, buses,

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or trol ...

es and

tram A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport ...

s. Image:Nevsky znamenka.jpg, View of

from Znamenskaya Square in the 1890s Image:Znamenka.jpg, The Church of the Sign on Znamenskaya Square (built in 1794-1804) File:Vosstania Square and Oktyabrskaya hotel.JPG, Vosstania Square and Oktyabrskaya hotel File:Spb 06-2017 img19 Moskovsky railway station.jpg, Moscow Rail Terminal File:Ploshchad Vosstaniya Pityer.JPG,

Metro station A metro station or subway station is a station for a rapid transit system, which as a whole is usually called a "metro" or "subway". A station provides a means for passengers to purchase tickets, board trains, and evacuate the system in t ...

Ploshchad Vosstaniya

References

{{reflist Squares in Saint Petersburg Nevsky Prospekt

History

Transport hub

See also

References