Vosstaniya Square

59°55′52″N 30°21′43″E / 59.931°N 30.362°E / 59.931; 30.362

Vosstaniya Square (Russian: Пло́щадь Восста́ния, lit. Uprising Square) is a major square in the Central Business District of Saint Petersburg, Russia. The square lies at the crossing of Nevsky Prospekt, Ligovsky Prospekt, 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. Administratively, the Vosstaniya Square falls under the authority of the Tsentralny District.

History

Prior to the February Revolution, the square was known as Znamenskaya, after the church of the Sign, which was built there in 1794–1804 to a Neoclassical design by Fyodor Demertsov. The square was a scene of many revolutionary demonstrations and protests. After the Bolsheviks seized the city, they had the square renamed into the Uprising Square to commemorate these events. The church of the Sign was torn down in 1940 to make room for the surface vestibule of the Ploshchad Vosstaniya metro station (opened in 1955).

The roundabout at the center of the square was formerly dominated by Paolo Troubetzkoy's equestrian statue of Alexander III of Russia. In 1937, the Communist authorities moved the famous impressionist sculpture out of the square (it was put into the courtyard of the Marble Palace in the early 1990s).

The Hero-City Obelisk was erected on the same spot, in order to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Victory Day in 1985 design by architects Vladimir Lukyanov and Aleksandr Alymov.

In 2010 the 200,000-square-metre (2,200,000 sq ft) Galereya shopping center opened on the square, including a large Stockmann department store.^[1]

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 Moscow, Novosibirsk and other major cities, it is filled with passengers every day.

The square is home to the metro station Ploshchad Vosstaniya. The square is also a main hub for marshrutkas, taxis, buses, trolleybuses and trams.