The 1953 Arbatskaya metro vestibule survives in the courtyard of the General Staff building

Where did the handsome surface vestibule of Arbatskaya metro station go?

A building with columns and heavy stucco ornament, resembling a triumphal arch of three bays, is nowhere to be found on Arbat Square today. This vestibule of Arbatskaya station on the blue Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya line was built in 1953, a hundred metres from the old vestibule of the other Arbatskaya, on the Filyovskaya line, the one in the shape of a five-pointed star, which has survived to this day.

The sumptuous vestibule adorned the square until the 1980s, when in 1979-1987 the new building of the General Staff of the Ministry of Defence was erected in the style of Soviet modernism. Since then the entrance to the blue Arbatskaya has been rather dull, built into the northern façade of the General Staff.

But the handsome building with the arches was not pulled down. The vestibule simply ceased to function as an entrance and survives in the courtyard of the General Staff, as a satellite image will show. In effect, we walk through it whenever we go down into the metro. That very hall with the portrait of Stalin lies precisely inside the old vestibule.