Yesterday I was preparing a story about Vitebsky railway station, and when I was choosing photos for this story, I realized that the series of photos about the Light Hall and the spiral staircase should be made a separate post. The Light Hall, or as they call it, the Light courtyard of Vitebsky railway station is a huge hall that you have to cross on your way from the ticket office or waiting area to the covered platforms with trains. This is what the hall looks like:
On the left is the hall with the ticket offices, I showed you photos from this hall yesterday. On the right are the platforms. Behind me is the beautiful Picture Room (that's where the picturesque panels, huge mirrors and a grand piano). At the opposite end of the hall, near the bronze monument to Franz Gerstner, the Austrian engineer who built the first Russian railroad, there is another staircase which leads to the first and third floors of the building. It is a little less solemn than the marble staircase I climbed yesterday, but very beautiful too.
The Light Hall is decorated in such a way that it creates the impression of an inner yard rather than a room inside the station, an effect achieved through the design of the windows. The windows are decorated with plat bands and moldings, as if they were on the facade of the building and look outward to the street, not inside the house. This effect is enhanced by another unusual architectural solution. The part of the light courtyard adjacent to the cash desk has a free height from the ground floor to the top floor. We have got "Vitebsk channel" over which bridges with cast-iron wrought-iron handrails are thrown.
The spiral cast-iron staircase to the bottom of this channel is situated approximately in the middle of the hall. Unfortunately, it is not possible to go down this staircase, the passage is closed. But I went down the regular staircase, which is located at the opposite end of the hall, to get to the foot of this cast-iron openwork lace and take some pictures.
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| Smartphone | Xiaomi Redmi 3 |
| Location | Saint Petersburg, Russia |