Ligovka-Yamskaya I - The October Station
"Never had so valuable a train been loaded.
Half a million treasures had been dispatched.
A million more still awaited exit”
- Harrison E. Salisbury
27/6/1941 - Moscow Station in Vosstaniya Square. Some Leningraders still call it October Station, the name it bore from 1924 to 1930 (it had been Nicholaevsky Station since 1851). Security has increased since the outbreak of war. Several soldiers and a tank guard every entrance to the building, and another two anti-aicraft guns have been installed around the statue of Alexander III of Russia, making a total of four.
Soldiers loading trucks with boxes full of masterpieces from the Hermitage. Director Orbeli has gotten away with it, and the humungous train that has arrived to the October Station to move units of the great Kirov defense plant will now be used for the evacuation of the Hermitage.
27/6/1941 - Inside Moscow Station during the evacuation of the Hermitage museum. Two passenger cars are stationed in platform number 1, the first for the workers and the second for the military guard. As we scroll down the picture we see two locomotives and two flatcars with anti-aircraft guns which will later be attached to the train. In the freight terminal, 22 cars are being loaded with the treasures from the Hermitage. Special attention to the the armoured car in the third line, identified with a red star; it contains the work of Rembrandt, Rubens, Van Dick, Da Vinci, Velazquez, El Greco, Murillo, and others.
Disclaimer: This CJ includes original photos taken during the siege. To my knowledge none of them is protected by copyright, but if I were wrong I'm happy to delete any picture that infringes the law.
----------------------------------[AUTHOR'S COMMENT]----------------------------------
While working on this entry I realized that I made a mistake in Dvortsovy II. I included the statue of Alexander III in the image of the Marble Palace. However, as we can see in the first picture of this update, the statue was in the middle of Vosstaniya Square. Several years later it was transfered to its current location in the Marble Palace, and replaced by the Hero City Obelisk that commemorates the victory in World War II. Just for fun I decided to re-edit the picture as a window to the future, mixing the atmosphere of 1941 and the monument of 1990.
Your feedback and comments are very much appreciated. Hope that you enjoyed this update :-)
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