Leningradsky Railway Station

Stand still for a moment on the square and listen. Suitcase wheels rattle across the paving. A recorded voice echoes from somewhere inside, announcing a departure. Taxis idle at the curb, and the air carries a faint smell of diesel and hot pastry. In front of you rises a long, pale facade with a clock tower at its centre. This is Leningradsky station, the oldest railway terminal still standing in Moscow.

The station opened in 1851. It was the Moscow end of the first major railway in the Russian Empire, the line that linked the old capital with the new one, Saint Petersburg. Before the railway, that journey took days by carriage over rough roads. After the railway, travellers could make it in less than a day. For the empire, this was a statement as much as a convenience. Two capitals, joined by iron.

The building was designed by Konstantin Thon. He was the favourite architect of Emperor Nicholas the First, the tsar who ordered the railway built. Thon also designed the Grand Kremlin Palace and the original Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. Here, he worked on a more modest scale. Look at the rhythm of the windows, the paired columns, and the calm, symmetrical lines. It is a style that borrows from Renaissance palaces, the grand Italian houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

Now for the first surprise. This station has a twin. At the far end of the line, in Saint Petersburg, stands Moskovsky station. Thon designed both buildings, and they look very much alike. Each has the same long facade and the same central clock tower. So a passenger in the nineteenth century left one building and arrived, hours later, at its mirror image. The journey began and ended in almost the same place, architecturally speaking.

The railway itself has a famous story, but it belongs to folklore rather than the record books. Legend has it that Nicholas the First settled the route by laying a ruler on the map and drawing a straight line between the two cities. In the most popular version, his finger bumped the ruler, and the pencil traced a small kink. The engineers, so the tale goes, were too afraid to correct the emperor. In reality, the line is very straight, and the one notable curve had practical engineering reasons. But Russians still love to tell the ruler story.

The station has changed its name several times, and each name tells you something about the country. It was first called Nikolaevsky station, after the emperor. After the revolution of 1917, that royal name had to go. In the 1920s it became Oktyabrsky, meaning October, after the revolution itself. Soon after, it took the name Leningradsky, because Saint Petersburg had been renamed Leningrad. The city has since taken back its old name. The station kept its Soviet one.

Turn around and look at the square. Its official name is Komsomolskaya Square, but almost everyone calls it the Square of Three Stations. Leningradsky stands on one side. Beside it is Yaroslavsky station, with its steep, fairytale roofs. That is where the long Trans-Siberian journey to the Pacific coast traditionally begins. Across the square is Kazansky station, with its tall tower, which serves routes to the south and east. Three very different buildings face each other here, like three neighbours who never agreed on a style.

This is the second surprise. Of the three, Leningradsky is the plainest. Many visitors photograph its neighbours and walk straight past it. Yet it is the oldest of the three. The others were built or rebuilt later, in more decorative styles. Thon's building is quieter because it came first. It set the pattern of a grand station as a city gateway, before architects started competing to make stations look like palaces or castles.

Step inside, and the scale changes. The halls are bright and busy, with departure boards, cafés, and the steady movement of people with luggage. The station has been modernised many times, so you will not find an untouched nineteenth-century interior. What remains is the sense of purpose. This building has done one job for well over a century and a half. It sends people north-west, toward Saint Petersburg and beyond.

On the platforms, two very different trains tell the story of the line today. The Sapsan, named after the peregrine falcon, is a high-speed train. It makes the journey to Saint Petersburg in around four hours, sometimes less. Then there is the Red Arrow, an overnight train with a long tradition dating back to the Soviet era. It leaves Moscow late in the evening and arrives in Saint Petersburg in the morning. Many travellers still prefer it. You fall asleep in one capital and wake up in the other.

The station has also lived through hard years. During the Second World War, Leningrad was under siege for almost two and a half years. The railway from this station was the city's main peacetime link to the rest of the country, and that link was cut. For many Moscow families, this building is tied to memories of separation, evacuation, and long waits for news. When the line reopened, it carried more than passengers. It carried hope of return.

Before you leave, go down into the metro. Komsomolskaya station sits beneath the square, and the part on the Circle Line is one of the most decorated stations in the Moscow system. Look up at the yellow ceiling, the white stucco work, and the large mosaics. The contrast is striking. Above ground, the railway stations are about departure. Below ground, the metro was designed to show the grandeur of the Soviet state to everyone who passed through.

Come back up and look again at the clock tower. It has watched over this square for generations. Merchants in top hats, soldiers heading to the front, students with backpacks, and business travellers with laptops have all looked up at it, checking the time before a train. The faces have changed. The gesture has not. As you walk away, listen once more. The announcements, the wheels, the footsteps. Somewhere behind that pale facade, a train is pulling out toward the north-west, along a line that is almost perfectly straight. The building in front of you started that journey long before you arrived. It will keep starting it long after you go.