Pushkin Metro Station (Pushkinskaya)

Usually, the theme of a metro station is set by a panel: the narrative is placed on the wall, and everything else is the background. At Pushkinskaya, they did it differently: the theme is sustained by light. Along the tracks and the middle span, the platform is decorated with original wall sconces shaped like a garland of candles. A 1982 magazine explains the concept directly: in the style of the great poet's era. That is, the 1980 station is lit not by lamps, but by conventional candles referencing the early 19th century. The author is artist I. Liepene. The motif is repeated on the descents: on the walls of the stairways leading to the platform, wall sconces in the form of golden glass candles on cast iron shaped brackets are installed. The cast iron work is no accident - this is also the language of Pushkin's era, with its railings and lanterns. It turns out that the passenger descends along the candles and steps out onto the platform where the candles continue as a garland. The poet himself appears once, and in the right place. Above the entrance to the platform - on the forehead, which the magazine calls a portal of sorts - artistic relief bronze heraldic panels are installed, and A. S. Pushkin is depicted on one of them. The sculptor is I. Lipas. The station stands near Pushkin Square, with exits leading to sports complexes and the Salar railway station. It bears the poet's name to this day, though in a short form - Pushkin: of all the stations of the second section, this is the only one whose name survived both 1991 and all subsequent renamings without changing its essence.

The second section of the line, opened on August 18, 1980, consisted of three stations, and they were designed differently: two are vault stations, Hamid Alimjan and Maxim Gorky, and this one is a columned station. The choice of type was not determined by taste: all three stations were built using the cut-and-cover method in an excavation pit, and the structure was selected based on the soil, depth, and what is located above. The columns here are marble, but with a detail that was absent in the first section: their flutes are golden, made of anodized aluminum profile. This is a technique characteristic of its time - a classical form executed in a material that by 1980 had become common for industrial architecture. At Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya three years earlier, the flutes were assembled from red granite, while here they are made of anodized metal. The ceiling is made relief, from concrete elements with a decorative geometric pattern. Together with the marble walls and rows of columns, this creates an effect that the authors described in three words: slenderness, rigor, and scale. Compared to the neighboring stations of the section, where the vault is covered with floral ornamentation and carved ganch, Pushkinskaya is the most restrained. The stone for the station was selected from various places: the walls and columns of the vestibules are faced with Nurata, Kibikkardon, and Karakalpak marbles - all in white and warm shades - while the floor is paved with gray Aktau granite. The station was designed at Tashmetroproekt by architects L. T. Adamov, R. Fayzullaev, A. L. Tabibov, and A. N. Adylova. Adamov had previously designed the V. I. Lenin Square station on the first section, and Fayzullaev was one of the authors of a 1982 article through which we generally know how everything is structured. The section was built long and with difficulty. The excavation of the left tunnel between Pushkin Square and Maxim Gorky Square - 997 meters, the longest route of the section - took the brigade of Boris Mukhin from the third management of Tashmetrostroy a whole year: to excavate, line with concrete, connect seismic fastenings with monolith, and inject mortar into the voids behind the tunnel wall. They finished it in June 1979, and the station welcomed passengers a little over a year later.