Chistiye Prudy

Chistye Prudy ( _ru. Чистые пруды), or "Clean Ponds," is a Moscow Metro station located on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. It opened on 15 May 1935 as part of the first segment of the Metro. The station is located under Myasnitskaya street at Turgenevskaya Square, and the Clean Ponds Boulevard and Park, after which it was named.

Though planned to be a three-vaulted station with a full-length central hall (similar to Krasniye Vorota and Okhotnyi Ryad), Chistye Prudy was built instead according to a "London Underground type" design with two passages at either end of the station connecting the platforms. The outer platform vaults were finished to give the impression that a central hall did in fact exist, with what appeared to be a row of dark marble pylons. However, all of the archways except those at either end of the platform were barricaded. The architect of the initial station was N.Ya. Kolli.

During World War II the station was closed and its platforms were fenced off with plywood for use as the headquarters of the Joint Staff and PVO Air Defense.Chistye Prudy's central hall was built in 1971 so that the station could become a transfer point to the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line. The architects for this project were N.A. Shukhareva, L.N. Popov, and A.F. Fokina. The new portion of the station was finished to resemble the original sections as closely as possible, maintaining the its original character. Escalators were built in the centre of the platform to connect to Turgenevskaya.

Chistye Prudy is finished with dark grey "Ufalei" and white "Koelga" marble, with a dark granite platform. In 1989 the station's outer walls were refinished with marble rather than ceramic tile to approximate the original design even more closely.

The station was named Kirovskaya from its opening until 1990, and there is still a bronze bust of Sergey Kirov at the end of the platform. In 1992 it was briefly called Myasnitskaya, but renamed a few days later into its current name.

Transfers

From this station it is possible to transfer to Turgenevskaya on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line. A transfer to Sretensky Bulvar on the Lyublinskaya Line opened in 13 January 2008.

External links

* [http://www.metro.ru/stations/sokolnicheskaya/chistye_prudy/ Description of the station on Metro.ru] (in Russian)
* [http://www.mymetro.ru/cgi-bin/list.pl?lng=ru&a=1&b=1&c=08 Description of the station on Mymetro.ru] (in Russian)
* [http://news.metro.ru/f18.html News.metro.ru]
* [http://www.kartametro.info/?hl=EN&ms=ChistiyePrudy&z=17&t=k KartaMetro.info] — Station location and exits on Moscow map (English/Russian)